


Crave the Brush of Spring

by elissastillstands



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Season/Series 04, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/F, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Gwen Has Magic, Initial Gwen/Arthur Pendragon, Introspection, M/M, Magic Revealed, Original Character(s), POV Gwen (Merlin), Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:08:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 112,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25809376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elissastillstands/pseuds/elissastillstands
Summary: There is no safety in Morgana's arms. Morgana makes her angry, and afraid beyond that, because Gwen thinks of Morgana with her unrelenting, cruel righteousness and feels something stirring in the space beneath her ribs, an echo of the fury she has buried since she came of age. She thinks of Morgana, and her tongue breaks, and her skin feels too tight and too small to contain her.It is Ygraine who asks Nimueh to help her conceive a child born of magic, and though she knows what will come to pass, Nimueh is powerless before Ygraine's desires.Decades later, that same child rules over a Camelot haunted by its past. The kingdom is besieged from without by a powerful Morgana seeking justice, and from within by its own broken laws. Gwen and Merlin stand at Arthur's side in his bitter war against his sister, but as their secrets come to light, Gwen must grapple with her gravitation towards the woman she once served. In the face of the slow dissolution of her world, Gwen finds herself confronting what she has long tried to bury in the name of loyalty: the power of grief, the force of anger, the weight of women's love and women's hunger.
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Ygraine de Bois/Nimueh (Merlin)
Comments: 126
Kudos: 97
Collections: After Camlann Big Bang





	1. Iron and Silk

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatthedruidscallme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthedruidscallme/gifts), [Valika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valika/gifts).
  * Inspired by [{Art} for Crave the Brush of Spring](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25782958) by [Valika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valika/pseuds/Valika). 



> It truly takes a village to wrangle a piece like this, and it wouldn't have gotten to publication without these lovely people:
> 
> [whatthedruidscallme](https://whatthedruidscallme.tumblr.com/), you have such an insightful and thorough eye and made this story so, so much better. Thank you for the beta, the headcanons, the support, and the reminders to control my metaphors. [valika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valika/pseuds/Valika), your edits capture and enliven my words on the page. Thank you for choosing to work with my fic, and for being so patient and accommodating with my first ACBB foray. [aeveee](https://aeveee.tumblr.com/), your feedback on the first draft and your encouragement were indispensable. [warp6](https://warp6.tumblr.com/), thank you for being there through all the tangents and vagueblogging and constantly changing drafts. And finally, to M, who bore my unfettered stream of consciousness rambling for the last 8 months, and K, who pushes me to arcane practices like "outlining" and "plotting" and "planning," and generally enables me (alas!) to better myself. I raise my cup to you.
> 
> A few introductory notes to the fic: it starts in early S4. The first two chapters refer heavily to the events of 4x05 "His Father's Son" and 4x06 "A Servant of Two Masters"; Chapter 3 addresses 4x09 "Lancelot du Lac." The story diverges entirely from canon at that point. The overall rating falls between a T+ and a low M, for canon-typical violence and mild sexual content.
> 
> Last, but most importantly, this is a story first and foremost about Gwen. I hope you all enjoy.

_[Check out more art by valika here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25782958) _

  


_My love, why did you ask me? Why did you beg me? Why did you do this, even though you knew it would damn us all? We can't outrun fate. No one can, not even a de Bois._

_Why, my love?_

_Damn you, Ygraine. Damn you and your husband and your babe-to-be to the deepest of the hells. I hate you, my love. I will hate you for the rest of time. I can't stop thinking it—my love, my love, my love. I can't stop singing it, even when I know what will come to pass._

_Damn us all, for loving you._

A king stands alone.

Gwen slips into Arthur’s chambers with a laundry basket propped on her hip. She has changed out of the fine gown she wore to his coronation back into her usual patched kirtle, and tallow smoke clings to her hair and apron. The guards unbar the doors and wave her through without a second glance in her direction.

A king is meant to stand alone, but Gwen will be damned before she lets him.

Arthur is seated at his desk. Agravaine is leaning over his shoulder, pointing at a piece of parchment as he narrates the movements of Camelot's enemies. “Caerleon will come from the east, and her troops will strike fast. We must fortify our defenses along the pass there, and—” he breaks off at the sight of her. “What are you doing here?” 

Morgana's troops, knights from Caerleon's army, the Southron mercenaries under Helios—Arthur has inherited a kingdom beset from all sides. Gwen bows, dropping her eyes to the floor. "I'm only changing out the hangings, my lord," she says. The weight of the tapestries in the basket tugs awkwardly at her arms.

Agravaine's gaze rakes over her, heavy as the scrape of stone. He dismisses her with a noncommittal noise, and she turns to her work as Arthur and his uncle continue to discuss Caerleon's movements. The fabric under her hands is marvelously worked with metallic thread, which makes it thick and difficult to maneuver for all its beauty. She sets each panel down with a grunt and hears Agravaine snort under his breath.

"Uncle," Arthur says at last. "It's late. You should retire."

"Really, Arthur?" Agravaine flicks his reed pen to the side. "Can you truly afford to set aside the affairs of the state for a dalliance now?”

Gwen lets the final hanging fall into her basket with a heavy _thump_. She hopes the tight set of her mouth can be interpreted as abashment rather than what it truly is. “You go too far, Lord Agravaine,” Arthur says, pushing sheaves of parchment to one side of his desk. His voice verges on curt.

Agravaine bows his head. “My apologies, your majesty.” He straightens. “I spoke too harshly.” 

Arthur is silent, biting on his tongue. Agravaine hesitates a moment before his face softens. "I will take my leave, then." He kisses Arthur’s forehead, smoothing his hand over his hair. “I forget that you are a boy sometimes—that is how well you bear the crown.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” The corners of Arthur's mouth twitch in a weak smile. “Have a good night.”

The man leaves without acknowledging Gwen's presence. She crouches down, tidying the hangings in her basket until the door closes.

She starts, “Arthur—”

He sighs, rubbing his hands over his eyes. “Please, Gwen,” he says thinly. “Don’t. Not today.”

She rises and crosses the room to hug him, and he sags against her, unmindful of the kitchen-scent strong around her clothes. She can feel his shoulders shaking beneath her palms. “I'm sorry,” he mutters. “But—he's my uncle. There aren’t many I can trust now, you have to understand that."

Gwen sighs. “I know.” Arthur's loyalty to his family has always been fierce, perhaps too much so, and Agravaine now reaps the rewards of his nephew's compounded faith. With Ygraine long gone and Uther newly buried, he is the only one Arthur has left.

"He’s trying. You have to believe he is. He will regard you as you deserve, in time.”

“I don’t care what he thinks about me,” she retorts. “Twenty years in this castle—I’ve lived near my whole life with lords like him. One word to the kitchens and I can make him wish he was living in Brigit’s seventh hell. But there are other things I cannot so easily fix.” The parchment maps on the desk are marked with red, troop movements slashing the page as lash wounds. Caerleon has been attacking Camelot from the east and north, with rumors of sorcerers sworn to Morgana in their midst. Near a score of towns are in danger. “He treats you like a child, Arthur. Even when you are his king.”

“He only wants me to be better.” Arthur pulls away, looking up at her with puffy, tired eyes. The end of Uther's mourning period had only been yesterday, and private grief does not so easily follow the hours. “I might as well still be a child. I cannot yet stand alone.”

“You can.” Gwen sets her hands on his shoulders. “But you shouldn’t have to.”

Thousands now live and die by Arthur’s word and hand. No one should bear such power alone, much less wield it. Uther had stood alone as king, and he was the only king Arthur had ever known—one who executed with fire and built his castle over bones, who stood proud, and alone, and lonely. Gwen leans down and kisses Arthur lightly, cradling his face between her palms. She wants him to feel the resonance in their touch—to realize that he is only as human as she, that her hands are the same as his hands, for all that he wears armor and a crown.

They part when the door hinges creak and relax again when Merlin pokes his head past the threshold. “Is he gone?” he asks, glancing around the room.

“He is a lord, Merlin, and my uncle.” Arthur quirks his lips. “Show him some respect.”

His voice has no bite, and Merlin ignores him. He sidles out from behind the door, three goblets in one hand and a pitcher of strong-smelling wine in the other. The bolt latches behind him. The wine is red-black in the firelight when it is poured, and Gwen takes her cup gladly. It is sweet and pungent, strong enough to burn at the back of her throat and spread a gentle warmth through her chest. 

Arthur drains his goblet, and Gwen pours him another draught after she fills her own cup back to the brim. Merlin is the slowest with his drink, sipping at it as he studies the papers next to the pitcher. “Caerleon’s soldiers are coming on fast,” he says after the quiet has stretched and snapped. He tracks the paths of Morgana’s ally with his fingertips. “You need to protect the northern plains. They have more than enough men to capture Ismere and Helva.”

“Remind me,” Arthur says, setting down his goblet. His eyes are downcast, for all that he draws out his words in an uncaring drawl. “What do you know about military strategy?”

Merlin takes the bait. “You've dragged me into council meetings with you for years, I know what—”

“Clearly, those meetings haven’t done anything for you. Approaching from the northern plains would be a fool’s gambit, whereas they have a straight shot to the citadel if they go through the eastern pass—”

“They're raiding the villages and cutting us off first,” Gwen cuts across him. “They wouldn't attack the citadel if they know we can still call on aid from the border towns.”

There are hundreds of people in Ismere and Helva who have sworn allegiance to Camelot. They pay yearly tribute to the castle, in grain and wood and apples fine and fresh, and come into the city for Midsummer and dance with flowers in their hair. They came in the last sennight to hail Arthur as king, and now sleep in rooms in the lower town, preparing for the long journey back through the darkling woods. 

“You have their loyalty,” Gwen reminds Arthur.

And they have his. An oath of fealty binds both the servant and the liege, for all that lords are prone to forgetting their people. 

Arthur falls silent, tracing the flourishes engraved on the surface of his goblet. “Would she do it?” he asks at last. “She spent her summers in Ismere when she was young. She loved it there.”

Merlin pours himself more wine. Gwen turns away from the two of them to stare into the fire in the hearth. They don’t talk about Morgana unless they have to; they talk about the sorceress, the priestess, the witch, but rarely do they invoke Morgana—Morgana who dreamed, Morgana who smiled. Every mention of Morgana still makes Gwen’s chest ache, as though something had been pried from the cage of her ribs and it is now hollow with a terrible lack. Morgana had told her about Ismere too, on the drizzly days when they sat together and worked on panels for her dresses. No one there regarded her as the daughter of a lord. She ran through its orchards bare-footed and climbed in its trees, and sprained her ankle when she fell from one. She knew all the girls there by name, snuck kisses with them behind the tavern and gave them tokens in the colors of Gorlois and Pendragon both. Ismere was where she had the freedom to be a girl, half-wild and eager, greedy for the world.

“She was happy with us,” Gwen whispers. “And that hasn’t stopped her.”

Camelot had been where Morgana spent more than half her life. She and Gwen grew together and came of age in the same summer. Gwen was ten years of age when she first met her lady, and no matter how many winters have passed since then, no matter how much pain her kingdom has borne from Morgana’s anger, there will always be a sliver of her that feels ten still, and adores the beautiful princess who so adored her. The hollowness behind her ribs strikes her at the strangest moments—when she is in the kitchens and finds fresh strawberries on the common table, when she dons her name-day gown, when she takes her dinner with Arthur and sees his sister in his face and his sister’s absence at their table, which is still set for three. Gwen had never realized how much she craved Morgana’s closeness until she was gone.

Hadn’t Morgana been happy with them once?

Yet the Dorocha still cut through Camelot’s people like a knife through soft clay. The pyres still burned for days after the Veil was closed. 

Arthur reaches over to the map of their kingdom and sets markers on Helva and Ismere. “We will send knights in the new sennight,” he says, and he picks up his goblet and drinks until there is nothing left save dregs.

Gwen and Merlin sit around the desk and talk until the fire burns low, trying their best to keep their chatter light—servants’ rumors about the visiting nobles, romances between minor lords, nothing heavier than what can be overheard from the squires and stablehands. Arthur’s eyes have fallen shut. He doesn’t join their gossip, but he still smiles where they hope he would. Merlin yawns and bids them goodnight after the bells chime at midnight.

When they lie down in their bed, Gwen reaches for Arthur and holds him. He is shaking still.

_Why did you ask this of me, Ygraine? Is it because you know I can never refuse you? Is it because you know how weak I am for you?_ _Because you know how much I love you?_

_Didn’t you love me once?_

Gwen still lives in her room off the antechamber of what used to be Morgana’s suite. All the furniture has been covered with drapery to ward off the dust, and Gwen picks her way by torchlight through the pale figures every time she goes back in the evenings. The more nights she spends with Arthur, the more the somber evening stillness of the chambers takes her aback when she returns.

She could ask for a new room. She is the sister of a knight, the head maid for the women in the castle, and their new king’s favorite besides. She could be sleeping in a room with a window.

But moving seems like surrender. Half of the castle’s servants are waiting for Arthur’s new queen—a noble woman, undoubtedly, from a kingdom that would give them soldiers to push back Morgana’s fury—to boot her back to the servants’ quarters. The other half of them wait for her to take the chambers for herself, more assured in her than she is in herself. No one understands why she insists on keeping her dresses in the same small chest and sleeping on the same pallet she had slept on for the past decade, least of all her.

She still wakes up on some nights thinking she can hear Morgana’s screaming.

There is a vase set on the shrouded main table. Every sennight, she changes out the flowers—she always brings violets, when she can find fresh ones, and the sprigs of sweet-smelling lavender which Morgana always loved, and short tufts of spruce needles, and juniper berries. It is the only spot of color in the whole of the antechamber. No one comes into these rooms save for her, so there is no one to ask her _why_ and force her to articulate her idle fantasies—Morgana coming home and seeing the flowers still fresh in her room; Morgana coming back to her, without the blood, without the war.

It is in the white-hung room that she paces now, her arms crossed over her chest. The day outside is bright, but she keeps away from the windows. The murmuring of the crowd outside still reaches her ears, despite her efforts to block it out.

She thought it would end with Uther. It hadn’t.

Gwen had been serving water to Arthur and his council when the knights dragged a boy through the doors. She knew him as the candler’s son, who let her bargain with him for the beeswax candles the seamstresses used on their late nights. He couldn’t have been a day over his sixteenth summer, and he stared at them with defiance blazing from his bruised face. 

_He was caught in the main square, Majesty_ , a knight said, shoving the boy to his knees in front of the king. _Rallying for the sorceress Morgana. People were thronging about him. We found this around his neck._ He tossed an amulet carved with the insignia of the Mother onto the table.

Arthur’s expression might have been carved from stone, for all the emotion he showed. _It is not a crime to follow the Goddess._

_He admitted to it, Majesty. To magic and treason both._

Gwen could see Arthur’s gaze darting between his advisors and the boy at his feet, and it was to Agravaine that he looked the longest. The lord shook his head, and Gwen took a short step forward, fighting to keep from reaching for Arthur with so many already scrutinizing him.

 _He will face the axe tomorrow,_ Arthur decided tonelessly, and the candler's son was dragged away. The lords turned back to their conversation, and Gwen’s stomach dropped. She stood in the corner with her head bowed, holding the pitcher of water until the council finished.

 _You could have spared him,_ Gwen grits through her teeth once the door has closed behind Agravaine.

_He is a sorcerer consorting with the enemy. By the law of our land, he must die._

_That law is yours to change._ Gwen’s voice rose. _You can stop your father’s war, Arthur—_

 _Magic was what killed my mother. That's why my father banned it, and it killed him as well. As far as I’m concerned, he was right about it,_ Arthur shouted. _The boy sided with Morgana. He used sorcery in the citadel. He knew what the punishment would be._

 _If you were his age and told your whole life that your existence is criminal,_ Gwen yelled back at him, _and if there was even a chance for freedom, wouldn’t you risk your life for that?_

Arthur stared at her flintily. _Guards,_ he said, and he was quiet now, _escort Guinevere from these chambers._

Gwen glared at the knights and held out one hand in warning. None of them touched her as she left the room.

Today is the day of execution. Arthur hasn’t spoken to her since that council meeting. She looks out the window and sees them dismantling the executioner’s platform in the courtyard, and braces her hands against the windowsill, swallowing down another scream. She’s a coward at the end of the day—too much of a coward to even bear witness. The people of the lower town mill about the spot where the axe had fallen. A girl standing under the far wall weeps furiously into her hands, hiding her face from the light. She is given a wide berth by the others in the courtyard. The town cobbler catches the eye of one the knights around the courtyard and moves to spit on the cobblestones; the man next to him pulls him away, still shielding the eyes of the boy standing between them. They are all watched with suspicion by the maids lingering next to the gates. Fear turns easily into divisions, into hate—and under the king’s law, none of these are abstracts. 

There is a knock on the main door of the chambers. Gwen wipes at her cheeks with her palms before opening the door a crack. Merlin and her brother are standing there, dressed in hardy jackets. “Elyan,” she says, blinking at them. “Merlin. What are you—”

“Caerleon,” Elyan reminds her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. “It’s only a day’s ride, but we don't know how long we’ll be gone.” He lowers his voice. “I’m sorry, Gwen.”

They had just killed one sorcerer, and now they’re off to kill others. Gwen hugs him tightly, telling herself that this is for the best. If they capture Caerleon’s king as the council had planned and use him as a hostage to negotiate a peace with the kingdom—

—the war would still go on. But it would be shorter.

“I don’t know why you have to go as well,” Gwen says, hugging Merlin in turn. For all his loyalty and stubborn grace lends him a strange strength, he has never learned to handle a sword. She doesn’t want him near the battlefield. “Arthur can put on his own mail for a few days.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” Merlin says, brushing off her concern with a grin. His chin is mulishly set, belying the lightness of his tone. There are days when Gwen wonders what Arthur has done to inspire that sort of loyalty.

“Come back to me,” she tells them, squeezing their hands.

“We’ll try,” Elyan says. He flashes her a dry smile but grows somber quickly. “Gwen—I heard what happened between you and the king yesterday, but—”

Gwen shakes her head. She knows too well what happens in war—they have all been living in the midst of one for much of the last year—but that doesn’t mean she will grovel. “Tell him I wish him to go with the Mother’s blessing,” she says. “And that I will see him when he comes back.”

And with that, they leave.

 _When he comes back_ , not _if_ —it is an empty distinction now. Gwen goes back into Morgana’s rooms and stands next to the window again. In the square below, the executioner’s platform has been disassembled. Not a drop of blood had fallen to sully the shining stone of the courtyard. Knights stand in ceremony at the entrances to the castle, their armor shining. 

She does scream then, ripping the heavy coverlet off of the loom in the corner with a mighty swing of her arms. Dust motes are flung into the air, catching in the sunlight that filters through the windows, and Gwen clutches the dirty fabric to her chest as she takes great, heaving breaths.

Morgana had stood at that window for a decade and watched as her people were killed for nothing more than the fact of their lives. Maybe they should be grateful that Camelot is still standing rather than wondering why Morgana turned to hate.

Gwen carefully drapes the sheet back over the beams of the loom. She goes back into her little room, where there are no white-veiled memories, and digs out the half-finished panels of embroidery she had shoved to the bottom of her weaving basket when Morgana left her for good. Embroidery calms her hands, much as weaving mail did when she helped her father at the smithy. The panels can go to another lady after she is done with them. There's no use in wasting good silk and handiwork.

Morgana's household disbanded when she left. Her maidservants became castle laundresses and cook's apprentices; the women who wove glories of wool and silk under her direction now earn high marks weaving and sewing in the lower town. Gwen visits their shop when she has time. She misses them—Letitia, the oldest, who accompanied the lady Ygraine when she first came to Camelot. Mary and Isabella, who teased her endlessly when she wore the tokens of knights and princes. Julia—Gwen was the one who first taught Julia how to weave. She was half a year past her ninth name day when she joined the royal household and had cried on her first day in the castle, overwhelmed by the stone walls surrounding her. They sometimes let Gwen sew with them still, but they call her _my lady_ , and their banter is not so free as it was before.

She makes her way to the seamstresses' room on the east side of the castle, where morning sun streams in. It is as airy and bright as she remembers, the windows thrown open to allow the summer breeze to waft through. The last time she was here, she thought Morgana was back with them, and that she would be able to shield her lady from any evil the world could hurl against them. Much has changed since those days. There used to be five chairs in the room, set next to the windows where they can catch the most sun, and the women would sit there with their laps overflowing with fabric. There is only one chair in there now, and one seamstress, humming as she mends a wall hanging. Her dark skin is burnished in the light, short-cropped curls bobbing in front of her face as she squints down at the ripped weaving and frowns.

She jolts to her feet when Gwen appears in the doorway. "My lady—" she starts, bending in a curtsey.

"Please." Gwen's knuckles are ashen around the handle of her basket. "Don't."

The woman starts to curtsey again before catching herself.

Gwen slowly steps into the room and settles on the floor against the far wall. "I'm Guinevere," she says, holding out her hand. "Gwen, for short. I don't think we've met yet."

The woman looks at her hand warily. "I should be giving you this chair, shouldn't I," she says in a too-level tone, with the sort of dread Gwen associates with the council, or the fighting fields. Gwen bursts out laughing. She sounds a little panicked, even to her own ears.

"No, absolutely not," Gwen assures her. "I know how long you work for a chair in here. It was six months before I got mine, the first time around." 

"My name is Imogen." She finally shakes Gwen's proffered hand. "I started in the autumn, my lady. I didn't have to work for a chair; the room was empty when I came and I just—brought one in."

There were once six chairs in the room, allotted to them at Letitia's discernment. Gwen doesn't want to think of this room ever being empty and bare. "Then you are lucky," she tells Imogen.

"I suppose so, my lady."

"Imogen—call me Gwen. Please." Gwen waves at her skirts, spilled as they are all over the floor. "You can hardly call me a lady when I am sitting like this, can you?"

Imogen doesn’t answer. She turns haltingly back to her mending, and Gwen starts to unroll her fabric panels, picking out the threads where she had left off from the embroidered flowers. They glitter in red and gold on the burgundy field, unfinished.

They work in silence. Imogen doesn't start humming again, and she keeps her every motion stilted and small. Gwen can't remember a time when the room had been so quiet.

"Letitia told me to look out for you," Imogen says suddenly. "But—then I thought—why would you come back here?"

Gwen pulls the fabric closer to her face, working on the tiny center of a rose. "Because I want to," she says softly. "Because—I miss it here."

"You take your supper with the king, and you miss working your fingers raw on a hellbound little flower?" Imogen asks in disbelief. "We bleed all over those damned dresses, you know, and we don't even get to wear them."

Imogen's scoffing, untarnished by any veneer of formality, makes Gwen smile. "No one thinks to say that in court," she says by way of an answer.

Imogen picks up a corner of her tapestry before setting it down again. "I wouldn't," she declares. "Come back, I mean."

Gwen nods. "Then I hope the day will come when you will not have to."

The breeze filtering in through the window tickles at their hair. Imogen starts to speak, but she snaps her mouth shut before she says much of anything. Gwen ties her curls back into a bun and starts to embroider in earnest. She can feel the weight of the other woman’s stare on the back of her neck and tries to ignore it.

"Do you want to hear about them?" Imogen breaks the silence again. Her voice is hesitant. "The others."

"I would love to," Gwen says, and she hopes Imogen can hear the _thank you_ beneath her words.

Imogen lets her sew the day away, and listen to her as she recounts the loves and lives of the people Gwen doesn't see in court. Mary and her wife had taken in a ward, a sweet girl of three who lost her parents in a border raid and loved to sing along to Mary's lullabies. Isabella ran away with a travelling acrobat for a month and then came back with all sorts of stories about faraway lands. Julia is being courted by a stablehand with beautiful eyes. Sarra accepted an apprenticeship with the horse master. Never once does Imogen mention Caerleon, or Arthur, or Morgana. 

The flowers grow beneath Gwen's fingers, a riotous bloom of petals and leaves racing across the fabric like the meadows. On the days when the court babbles too loudly and the halls of the castle grow too narrow, she finds herself thinking longingly of her needle and thread, or the fire-bellows she had pumped when she was too young to handle the tongs. Her father once told her that she had uncanny luck with iron—she could sharpen any blade and set it true, lead a thread with her needle through any fabric and never have it break. Take dead metal and make it live. 

Iron and silk have always been easier for her to understand than the push and pull of human action.

The party comes back within the sennight, and Gwen exhales a sigh of relief when she counts their number and sees that they are none the lesser. Their armor glitters under the road-grime that has sunk between the rings of their mail. She finishes a petal on her panel before setting the fabric aside, taking care not to lose the needle. The king and his head knight must address the council of lords before tending to their personal affairs, so she has time. She goes to hug her brother and takes her meal in private. When the evening comes, she walks through the halls with a gait that is almost leisurely, slipping by the guards outside of Arthur’s chambers to wait inside. His desk is still scattered with war maps. There should be less red on them now, with Caerleon on their side.

Arthur steps through the door, tired but unwounded, grubby from travel. She does not hesitate to hold him tight, despite the dour glare Agravaine aims in her direction. “Did you miss me?” he asks with a wan grin. 

Gwen nods. She brushes his fringe from his eyes. He seems wearied beyond the toll of a mere sennight’s travel.

“Gwen,” Merlin calls from the corridor. “Can I get a hand with something?”

Arthur lets her go, pressing a fleeting kiss to her hand. Agravaine shuts the door behind her, and she turns to Merlin, reaching for one of the bundles by his feet.

He pulls her into a side alcove instead, peering around to make sure they are alone. It takes a moment for him to say, “Arthur killed Caerleon’s king.”

Gwen inhales sharply. “What? He—why?”

“I don’t know.” Merlin worries at the edge of his nail with his teeth. “We had captured the king, as was planned. He was brought back to our camp and refused to sign the treaty, and Arthur—killed him.”

Gwen sinks back against the wall, letting her head tip back and rest on the stone. “That’s—senseless,” she says, her words uncertain on her tongue. 

Treaties take upwards of a sennight to negotiate. No king would be fool enough to sign a treaty in a temporary camp, with a sword to his neck—a ceasefire should have been called, a period of negotiations set, hostages released in a gesture of goodwill from both sides. Killing Caerleon’s king can only be one of two things: a gesture of cruelty, or a confession of desperation. 

Camelot is not yet desperate in her war. But Gwen has grown up alongside Arthur and known him before he stepped into his duties as crown prince; she has seen him treat maids callously and throw knives at pages, unleashing his temper on men and women who did nothing to deserve it. He had the capacity to be foolish and haughty, close-minded and prideful and ruthless—and he has also learned over the years to remember, and with that, to regret. He could be cruel, from necessity or grief or ignorance, but she has never seen him indulge in cruelty for its own sake.

Who is telling Arthur that cruelty makes a king?

The door opens, and Lord Agravaine leaves without a glance in their direction. Gwen stops Merlin from rushing to the door with a hand on his arm. “Give me some time with him,” she says, and he nods, his lips pressed thin.

Arthur is sitting at his desk, head cradled in his hands as he studies his maps. “Why did you do that?” Gwen demands the moment she enters.

He doesn't ask her to clarify. “It was a display of strength, Guinevere. His queen will surrender without him.” Arthur feigns confidence well, but she can hear the tremor running through his words. His hands arefisted on the table. 

“You killed her husband. She now commands her kingdom’s army, and they’ll fight for him as they would for a martyr.”

“You make it sound like I slaughtered him in his sleep,” Arthur snaps. “I returned his body to Caerleon in state. Surely that counts for something.”

Desperation or cruelty. Without Agravaine there, he sounds only desperate. “It counts for nothing. He's still dead. Camelot will be plunged into war.”

“We are already at war.”

In three quick strides, Gwen crosses the distance to his desk. “Annis is going to come for you,” she says, enunciating with care. She shakes his shoulders, and he doesn’t meet her gaze. “You just killed her husband—you murdered a man who surrendered to you, Arthur. Why in the hells did you do that?”

“I have to be strong for Camelot,” Arthur bites out. He finally looks at her, pained and pleading. “I need to prove myself, Gwen. I cannot show them that we are weak. Not now.”

Those aren’t his words. Gwen knows that to the core of her. She slowly lets him go, taking one step back, and then another. “Mercy is not weakness,” she tells him in parting. “I thought you’d have learned that by now.”

The next day, a messenger from the border gallops into the courtyard. He tumbles off his horse and sprints towards the castle, calling for the king. Gwen turns away from the window and hastens down to the throne room, where Arthur is holding an audience with the court. She emerges from behind the tapestries which cover the servants’ entrance without drawing the attention of the knights around the perimeter and carefully makes her way around the room to approach the dais.

“An army crossed our border at first light this morning,” she hears the messenger say. “Caerleon is marching on the citadel with all the might she has.”

Arthur forces himself to ask, “Who leads the army?”

“Queen Annis, your majesty.”

_Do you know who will die because of what you asked me to do?_

_I tell you their names: Analise, Warsena, Iphianassa, Evadne. I grew with them and learned with them, and they will be the first to fall to the arrows. Half of your city will burn—the herdsmen and farmers and healers and weavers, anyone who has ever lit a flame to warm the winter nights. Aulide, the cook’s daughter, will lay her own head on the altar. Colette and Claudius and Eleni and Portia and Cymbeline will all drown. Thousands will die, by iron or flame or by cold water, weighed down with stones. The Isles I have sworn to protect and uphold, where the Goddess’ arts were taught to me, will be razed, and all the priestesses will be burned, begging and pleading, or they will throw themselves onto the pyre when they can no longer bear the sight of so much death. The Valley will be filled with corpses. We will all be slaughtered, and our blood will run like the rivers, and I will bear witness to it all to repay for my sins._

_But you are Ygraine de Bois. You believe you can make prophecy bow. After I finish telling you the names of the people who will die for you, you kiss me and tell me the future is never fixed. You swear that your husband would never be that cruel. You smile at me, and though I do not doubt the deaths to come, I nevertheless think—it will all be worth it._

The messenger is ushered away and offered a room in the castle for the night. He will return to the front in the morning, wherever it has shifted. The lords and knights mutter fearfully among themselves as they disband, fretting about the risks to their crops and their flocks. Arthur rises from his throne and starts to pace in short, jerky circles as his uncle watches on. Neither of them notice Gwen where she stands to the side of the dais.

“We can evacuate the citadel,” Arthur decides. “Reduce the number of deaths, when the army gets here.”

Agravaine frowns. “You cannot abandon your people like that.”

“I—didn’t you hear what I just said? I want to make sure my people don’t die, uncle.”

“But this city is their home.” Agravaine steps out from behind the throne and clasps Arthur by his shoulders. “If it is conquered, their livelihood will be gone, along with your royal stature.”

“Damn my stature to the seven hells, Agravaine, I just don’t want anyone else to die!” Arthur lets loose a snarl of frustration, raking his fingers through his hair. “Caerleon’s army is larger than ours by half, and twice as well-trained. Scores of people have already died in Morgana’s attacks—I cannot bear the thought of more losing their lives under my command in an indiscriminate battle.”

“But they will not.” Agravaine pulls Arthur into a hug. “You are the king, and this is your city. Your knights are the best in the land, and Camelot—” Agravaine pulls back, a soft smile pulling at his lips. He saves that softness only for Arthur, and Arthur loves him for it, which is why Gwen cannot openly snarl at him, no matter how much she wants to. “Camelot is the white city of legends. My sister loved this citadel with all her heart, with all your towers and pennants. It was here that Ygraine found a place to let her gentle spirit flourish.”

At the mention of his mother, it is like all the fight is drained from Arthur. He sags against Agravaine, and Agravaine holds him tighter. “She loved this kingdom,” the lord murmurs. “If she saw you at its head as its rightful king, she would be so proud of you. It was all she ever wanted in life—she had no greater ambition than seeing her children joyful and thriving.”

Arthur nods, letting himself hug his uncle back without the usual reserve he keeps about himself like a cloak whenever he is in court.

“Ride against them with your own forces, my king,” Agravaine continues. “Caerleon has sorcerers in their midst. The threat of magic is too great to risk even one small incursion. Your knights need an opportunity to prove their strength, and you need a victory to prove yourself to the people. The army would never obey a widowed queen like they would their true king. You can more than easily defeat them.”

Gwen believes that Agravaine is honest in his fondness for his nephew. Honest words and honesty, in the parlance of courtiers, are not the same. It doesn't take much imagination for Gwen to picture what Agravaine wants when he says again, _Prove yourself, Arthur._ Drive the young king to the depths of insecurity and self-hatred before swooping in to rescue him. Isolate him so he doesn't trust anyone else. Establish trust by breaking it, in the most profound of ways.

She backs out of the audience chamber and leaves through the servants’ corridor, and neither of the lords are the wiser. 

“We can fight them,” Arthur tells her later that night. “My uncle wants me to wage open war. We might even win. But—we would lose so many.”

Annis and her husband have never held Camelot in high regard. They gave asylum to the people who fled from the Purges and refused to surrender them to Uther when he threatened them with war. His threats were never more than empty. Annis had more soldiers than Uther, and was more beloved by them than he was by his own. She fought side-by-side with her knights when she was young, and when it came time for her to marry, she raised one of them to the throne. Travelling bards like to sing of them—two of the best archers in the kingdoms, brought down by the arrows of love.

“It was never going to be an easy victory,” Gwen says. “No matter what your uncle might tell you.”

“Riders came in from the border towns. The army passed them by without raiding for supplies.” Arthur shakes his head. “She’s headed straight for the citadel. With any luck, we’ll ride out tomorrow and intercept her by Ancasta’s Pass.”

“You’ll have high ground there, at least.”

“Yes, but—” Arthur breaks off and rolls away, hiding from her. “I don’t want to lose any more men. I don’t want more—I don’t want any more death, Gwen. She’s only doing this because of what I did, as justice for Caerleon and her king. And if it weren’t for the city—if it was just me, and my life—I’d tell her to take what is owed to her.”

“Don’t say that,” Gwen declares. She pushes herself up onto her elbows, tugging him back to look at her. “You are our king. You have a responsibility to your kingdom. Throwing away your life would do nothing for us all.” She sets a hand on his shoulder. “You made a choice, Arthur. Now you have to atone for it.”

He sinks back into the pillows. “An eye for an eye,” he mutters. “A hand for a hand, until justice is served. Isn’t that the old saying?”

And that is how they end up with graveyards full. “There are other means of justice,” she says. “More difficult than eyes and hands.”

Arthur nods, settling his hand over hers. Outside their window, the moon is full and luminous, shining down on the castle courtyard. Uther paved that courtyard countless times, after sorcerers blasted the stones apart in their final moments on the pyre. They all grew up as children here, playing on top of the bones of those killed in the name of righteousness. Gwen has known Morgana since they were both girls. She is like her brother in that she too must be spurred to cruelty—it is why Gwen finds it bitter to blame her for her anger, for all that she mourns the lives lost in her relentless pursuit of justice.

“I’m going to invoke the right of single combat.”

She stills. “Arthur—”

“If Annis’ champion wins, I cede half this kingdom to her. If we win, Annis withdraws her army and begins a formal negotiation with us.”

Gwen knows better than to question who Camelot’s champion will be. “Not even the best sword-wielder can guarantee the outcome of a duel for blood,” she says heavily. “And that is assuming that she even chooses a knight as her champion. What if she sets a sorcerer before you? Your armor won’t do a damn thing against enchantments.”

“Then I die.” Arthur tilts his chin up. “It is the right thing to do.”

Gwen is torn between wanting to hold him and wanting to shake him. His eyes are eerie pale when the moon strikes them, burning with a defiant righteousness—he has his sister’s eyes. He has Morgana’s face too, her proud nose and sharp cheeks. Gwen traces her fingertips over his brow, remembering when she used to do the same for Morgana. It had soothed her after her bloody dreams. She presses their foreheads together. She thinks she might be crying.

“Don’t you dare make me lose another friend,” she whispers.

He leaves the next morning with his knights fanned out behind him, riding through the land like a flock of swallows. Gwen watches them from the seamstresses' room, through the wavering window glass.

"We're at war, aren't we."

Imogen does not phrase her words as a question. Gwen allows herself to exhale a single shuddering breath before she turns away from the window. "Hopefully, it will end soon.”

She and Imogen take their seats. Imogen had dragged another chair into the room for her. She told Gwen that she didn't want to spend a month living in a rat-infested cell in the dungeons for letting a royal lady sew on the floor, and no amount of reassurances and protests from Gwen convinced her to drop the title.

"Is it the Lady Morgana?" Imogen asks.

“Lady no more.” Gwen starts on her flowers again. “They call her the sorceress, or the priestess.”

"But you don't, my lady."

Her needle stills. “No,” Gwen says. “I suppose I don’t.” She turns to Imogen. “How much do you know about Morgana?”

Imogen glances at her, with her expression carefully schooled into blankness. Gwen knows that her use of Morgana’s name—with no title and no condemnation, with a casualness only years of closeness could grant—is as good as a confession. What crime Imogen will see implicit in her confession, Gwen does not know.

“Not much, my lady,” Imogen finally replies.

They both turn to their work, and the quiet settles again.

_I have spent my whole life learning to scry the paths of destiny, and when I see you smile, I forget it all. I believe, against everything I know, with a surety meant for children and fools, that fate itself will change for you. How can it not? You have bent a Pendragon to your will, and a Priestess. That must surely be like bending fate._

_I have never seen you so happy, Ygraine. You do not believe me when I tell you how many will die for you. I hate myself for telling you that your happiness has a price. You smile at everything, at the sunlight, and the flowers on your sill. You shine when he kisses your hand—you shine like the sun when it emerges from behind the rosy clouds of dawn and sets the lands aflame, and I watch and think, by the gods, by the Mother we serve, who would not let cities burn to see you smile?_

_People far better than Uther, I suppose. People far better than me._


	2. Hunger That Ate

Arthur returns with his knights, a ceasefire between Camelot and Caerleon established. A fortnight later, Queen Annis comes to Camelot to negotiate a formal truce. She is in mourning clothes, a stately black silhouette against the brightness of the summer sky, and her retinue all wear black cloaks over their armor, embroidered with the silver boar of Caerleon’s standard. When Annis dismounts, her cape flares about her, revealing armor in both plate and mail, well-worn but still gleaming. 

Arthur bows deeply to her. They do not clasp hands.

Gwen stands behind Arthur when the council of lords convenes, spending the meeting gliding behind the councilors to refill their goblets with cold water whenever they tap their fingers pointedly against the stems. No one so much as looks at her as she moves among them.

“Caerleon’s forces would be much appreciated in our ongoing battles with the dread sorceress,” Agravaine is saying. He sits ramrod-straight at Arthur’s side. “Your kingdom would benefit from the defeat of this evil as well, majesty.”

Annis leans back in her chair. “My kingdom has no conflict with the Lady Morgana, Lord Agravaine,” she says levelly, resting her hands on the table. “Largely because we have no conflict with magic-users. She poses no evil to me.”

The lords in the room tense, eyes skittering from side to side like the gazes of rabbits under the onslaught of a hound. Gwen has rarely seen them look so afraid—they have all held their council seats since Uther first conquered the land outside of his citadel and rallied his allies to fight alongside him. They each have estates in the snowy mountains to the north or rich fields to the east, built in the early days of the Purges, with more gold than even Camelot’s coffers can contain. Their standing in court is unshakeable. They have nothing to fear save for change. 

Arthur is silent as he stares at Annis, leaving Agravaine to answer the queen. “Your majesty, I do not think I need to remind you that you are only here by Camelot’s grace. While you are here, you must abide by our laws.”

“And you are only here by my grace,” Annis replies. “I could have refused your king’s invocation of single combat and continued my march to your castle, and then you would now be bowing to me. Do not presume that you have the upper hand so easily.”

“You surrendered, your majesty.” Agravaine does not even look at the queen when he speaks to her. “The terms are not yours to dictate.”

“We both agreed to a ceasefire, and I came to negotiate a treaty between kingdoms.” Annis bares her teeth. “Not to be treated like a hound who won’t come to heel.”

“And we will not negotiate a treaty with a queen who is so prideful that she cannot—”

“Lord Agravaine,” Arthur snaps. “That’s enough.”

Agravaine subsides mid-word. Gwen traces the metal flourishes on the water pitcher, willing Arthur to speak. He clasps his hands on his table, staring at the wood of the table until he musters what to say. “My queen,” he decides, lifting his head to look at Annis squarely, “we are grateful that you are willing to establish a truce between our kingdoms. I owe you recompense for the wrongs I committed, I admit that freely.” Agravaine scoffs, but Arthur forges on, ignoring his uncle. “But I must still act in the interests of my people. I ask that Caerleon cease her attacks on Camelot’s borders.”

Annis’ nod is sharp. “You will not pull me into your war,” she says bluntly.

“I understand that, your majesty.” Arthur bows his head.

“Arthur—” Agravaine hisses.

Annis raises her voice. “And my court will still offer asylum to any who flee persecution.”

“Be that as it may, if you harbor the sorceress or her allies, you will be in conflict with Camelot.”

“Then perhaps we are not yet ready to negotiate a treaty, my king.” Annis braces her hands on the table. “But I agree to a truce between our kingdoms. Caerleon will no longer attack your borders, and we will not provide soldiers to aid Lady Morgana in her battles.”

“Then let that be enough until we are both ready for a treaty proper,” Arthur says, and Gwen fights down a smile, standing a little taller in pride.

Annis glances at her and tips her goblet in a half-toast, a strange grin playing over her lips. Gwen freezes and ducks her head, going over to Agravaine to refill his cup. He tells her to fetch something stronger from the kitchens and dismisses her with a wave. She goes gladly. 

Annis and Arthur are the only ones of the lords to refuse wine, when she brings a pitcher back up. They draft the official terms of the truce and affix it with their seals, with all the councilors bearing witness. When the council is dismissed, Gwen lingers, tidying up the cups left behind on the tables. She remains long enough to hear Agravaine tell Arthur, _you cannot afford to be so weak,_ and Arthur answer, _I can neither afford to be so cruel._

That evening, Gwen goes to the guest wing and knocks on the door to the chambers allotted to Annis. The queen herself answers, dressed in plain breeches and a tunic. Gwen remembers the stories she had heard of her—the knight, the warrior, the lover. Her face still shadowed, for all she carries herself with ease. “Do you require anything before you retire, majesty?” Gwen asks with a curtsey.

Annis smiles. It reveals nothing. “I do not recall asking for a chambermaid.” She surveys Gwen carefully, her eyes glinting in the dimness. “You were at the council today, were you not? Standing with your king.”

Gwen inwardly grimaces. “Aye, majesty. I was.”

Annis steps aside from the door. “You might as well come in, my lady.”

“I am no lady,” Gwen says. She has served noblewomen for years, and knows well the callousness and little cruelties their life affords them. She hopes she will never learn to be so cruel. 

Annis only smiles again, watching as Gwen makes her way to the hearth. The guest chambers are dark, the fire dim and spluttering. Gwen tends to the flames, raking aside the ashes and stacking more wood on top of the embers. She wipes her ash-dusted hands on her dress when she rises, marking the dusky purple of her skirts with streaks of pale.

“You seem nervous,” the queen observes.

Gwen ducks her head. “Perhaps so, majesty. I—have much weighing on my mind.” She sighs, starting to tidy Annis’ table, wanting something for her hands to do. “His majesty does not believe he won the duel fairly,” she says, hesitantly, like she is admitting something unspeakable. “He suspects one of his knights of helping him with magic, though he would never admit it out loud.”

“Is he then violating his own law?”

“He would not be fool enough to repay someone who saved his life with death.”

Annis snorts, settling into her chair. “Then it seems we were both cheating.”

Gwen sets down the plate in her hands. “So it was Morgana.”

Annis is still for a moment before she tilts her head back and laughs. Her hair burns silver in the firelight. “Indeed it was.” Her fingers tap against the armrest of her chair. “Does your king truly doubt the results of the duel?”

“No, majesty.”

“Point to you, then.” The queen is watching the flames in the hearth, but Gwen can still feel the razor of her regard. “How did you know?”

“War is a costly means of revenge.” Gwen is now the one to smile. “You would have never made such a decision without a guarantee that you would win.”

“Perhaps I am angry. Grieving.”

“I have no doubt that you are both. But you are also a monarch, majesty. A good one. Too good of a regent to send your people into danger on your own whim.”

Annis finally looks over at Gwen. “So you knew the Lady Morgana would try to target me at the nadir of my grief. Offer me her aid, in return for a war to fulfill my anger and her own. A dual victory over Camelot.”

Gwen shrugs. “She has always been persuasive, majesty.”

She freezes as soon as her words leave her mouth. Annis raises her eyebrows. “Point to me,” she says.

The queen gestures to the chair in front of her, and Gwen sits down, her back straight and stiff.

“So who are you?” Annis asks idly. “A spy for the dread sorceress? What did the evil Morgana offer you, my lady?” She holds up a hand before Gwen can say anything. “Let me guess first. All the wealth in Camelot’s coffers. Power. Titles. Land. The ear of a queen.” She leans forward, propping her elbows on her knees. “Except you already have the ear of Camelot’s king. I have no doubt you have all but secured the throne by his side. If simple power or simple wealth were your objective, you would hardly risk being here, asking after your kingdom’s chief enemy with hardly a pretense to offer me. You are too good a courtier for that,” she says, parroting Gwen’s logic back at her with a mocking lilt.

Gwen stares stonily at nothing. Power, wealth, titles—all of those are better than the insidious truth, which is that she cannot stop thinking about a woman who betrayed them all and nearly executed her, who slaughtered her people and ravaged her land. Camelot is still reeling from Morgana’s undead army, from her release of the Dorocha, from her rain of fire and iron on the border towns, and still Gwen picks flowers for her by day and talks to the ghosts in her rooms at night.

“You aren’t a spy. Your betrayal is even worse than that.” Annis speaks without any condemnation. If anything, she sounds pitying. “You’re her friend.”

“No,” Gwen snaps. “Camelot is my kingdom. I will never betray this land.”

“And what of your king? Will you ever betray him?” Annis brushes her own question aside, ignoring the snarl Gwen can feel twisting her lips. “Tell me why you are here, my lady. Give me an answer that holds at least a little truth.”

“And what about your answer?” Gwen fires back. “How much truth will that have?”

“That,” Annis replies, “will depend on what you say.”

Gwen rubs her hands over her face. It might not be too late to feign that this is all in the name of Camelot and Arthur—that Arthur is too noble to interrogate Annis on her erstwhile ally, but Gwen has no such compunctions. Or that this is a mistake. That she is only a chambermaid, too naive to realize that she is playing at a game of kings.

But she still wants to know.

“She is my friend,” Gwen says at last. “Or—she was. And now, I don’t—”

She breaks off, unsure of what she can even say. Annis exhales, settling back into her chair. Gwen realizes with a start that the queen seems smaller than she was in the council meeting. Her arms no longer sprawl with confident laziness, instead pulled stiff and close to her body. The edges of her face are drawn in the shadows cast by the low flames. 

“She came to me in the name of Gorlois and the High Priestesses, seeking to avenge those who were killed by the house of Pendragon. I accepted her offer,” Annis says. They are both staring at the fire now. The pop and hiss of wood being burned while it is still a little too green punctuates the queen’s confession. “It was a fool’s errand from the first. One does not conquer a kingdom by marching straight for the citadel—but it had been such a long time since I gave any grief free rein.” The queen laughs under her breath. “The Lady Morgana was angry. So, so angry. I could see it in her eyes. She burned with it. And I did as well.”

Gwen can see it in her mind all too easily: Morgana sweeping into Annis’ black-hung halls, proud and beautiful as Brigit come back to earth, armed with nothing more than the light in her eyes and the harsh words on her tongue. Her lady whipping Annis’ rage into a storm, until she believed in the utter surety of her own fury. Morgana's conviction in her own righteousness; the palpable heat of her anger like the blaze of high summer, when the sun burns the top of the grassy knolls. What would Gwen have done, had she been in that room? Begged for Morgana to stop, to reconsider? Gripped her hands, her wrists, her shoulders, anchored her to the earth even at the height of her rage? Held her until her speech lost its awful resonance?

Or would she have joined her?

“And what of now, majesty?” The hearth-fire in front of them crackles as Gwen speaks. “Are you still angry?”

For the first time Gwen can recall, Annis' smile reaches her eyes. “I am always angry, my lady.”

In a gesture of goodwill towards Caerleon, Arthur and his chief knights escort Annis and her delegation to Camelot’s border. They come back ragged from an ambush, without Merlin at their side, as mutterings of Morgana and sorcery grow stronger by the hour. Arthur calls a meeting of his trusted knights, brushing aside his uncle’s concerns for his other duties. Gwen stands openly at the council table, between her brother and Gwaine, a knight with a mischievous grin and hair long enough to be tied at the nape of his neck. 

Gwaine is a man who abhors the fripperies of nobility and hates their hypocrisy even more. Elyan had been a trader and jack of all trades before he came back to Camelot, more used to swindling lords of their ill-gained marks than fighting side-by-side with them. Gwen has no great love for royalty, for all she has been in the castle’s service since she was a child. There is something about Merlin’s unyielding loyalty that rouses an answering devotion in the people around him, and the thought of him makes her grip at the back of a chair tight enough to make the tendons stand out on her hands. Elyan has one arm around her shoulders the whole time, anchoring her.

“We will send patrols to the forested sections of the border and along the mountain range,” Arthur says, tracing out the areas on the map in front of him. He is calm in the way that the air in the eye of a storm is calm, moments away from a descent into roiling panic. “Leon, coordinate the groups. Three men each, fast and light.”

“Aye, sire,” Leon replies, bowing his head. Arthur always looks to him first among all his knights. Leon has been by Arthur’s side since the prince was first training as a page, before he was even named crown heir. The knight is a level-headed lord from an old family, noble in many senses of the word. It took Leon some time to acclimate to Merlin's disregard for signifiers of propriety and station, but acclimate he did, and his face is downcast now as he studies the map. He takes a careful pause before asking, “Could it be Queen Annis’ forces?”

Gwen stares fixedly at the map as she speaks up. “I don’t think so.” The queen would at least wait a month or two before taking hostages and restarting their game of kings. “What about the Valley of Midir itself? It’s where you lost him in the first place.”

“I will take care of that.” Arthur’s diction harbors no room for argument. He crosses his arms, and his mail clinks with every small motion.

“Absolutely not,” Gwen says flatly.

“My sister has a point, sire.” Elyan’s voice is milder than hers, but she remembers enough of their childhood fights over festival-day sweets and knives rejected by their father's forge to recognize his stubbornness.

Gwaine only raises an eyebrow at Arthur over the table. The king glares back at the three of them before tossing his hands into the air. “We leave at sunrise,” he says, and he stalks from the room, ripping his gauntlets off decisively.

The knights mutter among themselves. Leon starts to assign them to search parties. Gwen stays at the table, raking the edge of her nail over a small ink spill marking the grain of the wood.

“He’s riding off now, isn’t he,” Gwaine proclaims to the room at large. It is not a question.

“Almost certainly.” Gwen turns to her brother, leaning her head on his shoulder, and he holds her close, rocking her back and forth in his arms. “Find him, Elyan,” she mutters into his neck.

“I don’t think our king will rest until we do,” Elyan says, and they all laugh, even though there is nothing of humor in the room. Most hostages held by Morgana and her allies do not come back alive.

Gwen watches from the window as Arthur, her brother, and Gwaine ride out, the bright red of their ceremonial cloaks switched for duller greys and greens. No one taking half a moment’s notice for their tack and swords would mistake them for anything other than titled lords, but it is still better than a display of Pendragon colors in territories where magic still reigned, king’s law or no. She forces herself away from the window, and her stomach twists at the sight of her sewing basket, still filled with half-finished panels for the gown that Gwen promised to Morgana more than a full year ago, for her next name-day. 

She wants to burn them, for belonging to a woman who abducted her closest friend, who might have already slain him. Her fingers tremble as she picks up the basket, thinking of unmarked graves and soil veiling his beloved face. She wants to work on the panels until her fingers bleed and they are beautiful, because she once heard that sewing and spellcraft are very similar, both weaving the threads of the world into something extraordinary, and if she makes something beautiful enough, she might repair the torn warp and weft that binds them all.

But she is too good of a seamstress to let her fingers bleed on fine silk. 

Imogen barely acknowledges her when she enters the sewing room and sits down to start embroidering with a fury, and she doesn’t ask Gwen any questions. Gwen forces herself to stay in her chair and sews until the light is too low to work, despite her screaming urge to stand at the window and wait for the patrols to come back. She allows herself to glance out the wavering glass each time she hears the clatter of horse hooves on the stone of the courtyard below. Three of the search parties come back without Merlin, their heads hanging low as they dismount.

When it is dusk, Imogen sets her sewing aside and rubs at her wrists. “Would you—like to take dinner with me in the kitchens, my lady?” she asks. “I know you usually take dinner with his majesty, but he is out on errand now, and you seem—”

Distraught. Frayed. A moment away from snapping, like moth-eaten wool thread.

“—tired,” Imogen finishes.

Gwen has not taken her evening meal in the kitchens for a long time. She picks a heel of bread and an apple only barely bruised from the main table before retreating into a corner, close enough to where Imogen sits to keep conversing with her but far enough from the central open space that the others would not see her and question. Luckily for her, Imogen does not appear to be the most social of seamstresses. The only other person she talks to is a woman her own age, who has almond eyes and a ruddy tan on her cheeks. Her hands are callused and stained with dye—she is the leatherworker’s new apprentice then, since his last apprentice earned journeyman status last autumn and now works in another town. 

“This is Judith,” Imogen says to Gwen. She takes a bite out of her bread and cheese, finished with her introduction after those three words.

Gwen nods at the woman, fiddling with the stem of her apple. From the corner of her vision, she can see Judith staring at her distrustfully as she mutters something into Imogen’s ear. Imogen tugs Judith down by the hand to sit on the bench with them. Their hands do not part after she is seated.

“I’m Guinevere,” Gwen says, smiling briefly at the pair of them.

“I—know,” Judith replies. She does not shake Gwen’s proffered hand.

Imogen snorts and tells Judith, “She did the same thing to me when we first met.”

Judith does not share Imogen's humor in the situation. She tugs her hand away and lowers her voice, but the frantic force of her whisper still carries over to Gwen. “Imogen, what if—we can’t—”

"It's alright. Trust me. She gets it." Imogen turns to Gwen, and her eyes have the same glint in them as they did when Gwen spoke Morgana’s name with something like longing. "Don't you, my lady?"

Gwen can’t bear to see the fear in Judith’s face, for all that she can understand it. Life under hate as stringent as Camelot's easily spawns more hate. She tells the two of them, “I do. I—I understand." She stumbles over her words, but forges on nonetheless. "I swear to you, I do. And I've told you before, Imogen, I'm no lady.”

“—oh.” Judith swivels over to look at her. “Oh,” she repeats again, and she ducks her head in a belated greeting. 

The quiet that settles over the three of them seems less taut than it was before, though none of them speak much during their meal. Gwen leaves after she gnaws her apple to the core, wishing the two women a good evening. They lean against each other in the dim light of the hearth, hands entwined, and Gwen aches with a ferocity that takes her aback. With that ache comes guilt that draws bile into her throat, and the white-cloaked forms in Morgana’s chambers loom large as Gwen goes to her own room. Merlin is still missing. Arthur and Gwaine and her brother may be following in his fate. She wonders if she can get away with smashing the chair in the corner. It’s small. No one would miss it. 

She can’t sleep that night.

_The Priestesses would cast me out if they knew what I did for you. My family would disown me. My land would exile me. Life-magic is dangerous enough without the prophecy your babe will carry into existence. I will die too, Ygraine. I will outlive you all, but I will still die._

_Be glad that your son will have a lover who will kill in his name._

_I have not yet warned them of what is to come. I fear their wrath. I fear being taken away from you. Disownment, exile, death—they are less than I deserve, but still I flinch away. I have become what I swore I would never be: a coward, fleeing from punishment like a thief in the night._

_I thought love was supposed to make me brave._

They ride back after the chime of the midnight bell, Elyan and Gwaine bearing torches to illuminate the night. There is a cloak-swaddled form sharing Arthur’s saddle. Gwen takes up a candle and hastens down to the courtyard to meet them. She knew they would find him. They had to.

“Found him asleep by a bog,” Gwaine announces as he dismounts with a flourish. He doesn’t sound tired, despite the lateness of the hour. “Bandits must’ve stripped him bare and then left him there.”

Elyan hugs her one-armed. “Turns out it wasn’t even sorcery,” he tells her. “We got lucky this time.”

Arthur is helping Merlin dismount. Merlin’s movements are uncoordinated and groggy, and Arthur and Gwen catch him together when he stumbles. His face is dirty, smeared with patches of dirt, and he smells of mud and horse. “Take him back to his rooms, yeah?” Arthur murmurs, pulling the cloak around Merlin’s body. “Have Gaius check on him in the morning.”

Gwen nods, slinging one of Merlin’s arms over her shoulder. “I’ll bring you your meals tomorrow,” she tells Arthur. “He should be fine, with some rest.”

“Of course.” 

He presses a kiss to her cheek. Gwen is too tired to lean into it. She starts walking over to the door of the servants’ corridor, guiding Merlin along, and she can hear the three men behind her leading their horses over to the stables and chattering among themselves. None of them seem to share the worries which are chasing each other like foxes and hares in her head. This is too easy. This is too simple. Their luck never runs so well. 

Merlin blinks up at her when they are halfway up the stairs. “Gwen?” he asks blearily. “What are you—where—”

“It's okay, Merlin,” she says. “You’re back in Camelot.”

“How—”

“Arthur, Elyan, and Gwaine found you and brought you back. You’re safe now.”

“Good,” he says. He leans his head on her shoulder for a moment. “Good,” he repeats. He must be drained, to be so taciturn.

She shoulders open the door to the apothecary’s chambers and pushes Merlin through. The clatter of their feet rouses Gaius, who hurries to the door. The relief is palpable in the old man’s gasp when he catches sight of his nephew, mud-stained and tired but still hale. Gwen bids the two of them goodnight and goes back to her room. She lies down and tells herself that Merlin is back now. The goddess of fortune is fickle as a summer brook, but rarely is she cruel. 

The sky is already gray, touched with the hazy precursors to sunrise, when she manages to sleep. 

She forces herself out of her pallet during the hour of dawn nevertheless, yawning into her clasped hands. By the time she picks her way down to the kitchens, they are already filled with savory-smelling smoke, the butchers cleaning up their stations and the sauciers preparing their pots for the trimmings the butchers left behind. Gwen asks one of the cook’s apprentices for the king’s meal, and the girl hands her a tray laden with small cakes, sausage, and a handful of ripe plums. Gwen balances the tray in one hand and a tankard of watered wine in the other, thanking the apprentice.

Arthur is awake by the time she enters his chambers, already dressed and sitting at his desk. “You can sleep more, if you want,” Gwen tells him, setting the tray down in front of him. “You don’t have any meetings today.”

“If my uncle comes in and sees me asleep, I’ll never hear the end of it,” he mutters. “Throwing away the affairs of the kingdom for a manservant—”

“You should be wary of sounding too much like him.” Gwen pushes the tray towards him. “The kingdom could wait for an evening. Eat.”

Arthur sighs, picking at the plums on the tray. “You should have some, if you want. Merlin is always the one who eats half of this.”

“Gladly.” Gwen takes a slice of sausage and tears herself half a roll. The bread is finer, the meat better spiced than the food she had eaten yesterday. The plums are perfectly ripe, with no bruises to be seen. Arthur still hasn’t eaten any of it. “You’re still worried about him, aren’t you.”

Arthur shrugs, yawning into his hands halfway through the motion. “Of course I am.”

“I’m glad you are.” Gwen eats more of Arthur’s breakfast. “He needs someone to look out for him.”

Arthur raises his head, and a current runs across his face. It takes a moment for her to recognize it as guilt. “Gwen—” he starts. “I know—there hasn’t been much time for me to show my regard to you, lately, but after this is all over—”

“You are far more tired than I thought, if our courtship is the first thing you think of when we’re talking about Merlin,” Gwen says, trying to sound dry. He seems so hopeful, so uncertain. She doesn’t have the heart to tell him the turmoil of her thoughts, not now. “Do me the favor of taking supper with me tonight, my king?”

She can see the tension drain from his shoulders. “It would be my honor, my lady,” he says. He brings up her hand to kiss her on the knuckles.

Merlin throws open the door to Arthur’s chambers then, and Arthur grins widely at him. “Merlin!” he exclaims. “I thought you would’ve taken your day off to sleep until noon, what are you doing here?”

There is a tray of food clutched in Merlin’s hands. “What’s this?” he asks flatly at the sight of them.

“Merlin, it’s alright, you should go back to sleep,” Gwen says, coming over to take the tray from him. “I thought Gaius would tell you—I’ll cover all your shifts for today.”

He jerks his tray back, his mouth twisted in outrage. “Look, I know you like to take every opportunity to be by his side, but this is just getting ridiculous,” he sneers. “You'll be pouring his bathwater next.”

Gwen freezes. She expects this kind of dismissive derision from minor lords, new knights, and Agravaine. Merlin has never spoken to her like that. He wouldn’t dare—she would like to think that, above not daring, he wouldn't ever want to.

“Merlin?” Arthur asks hesitantly. “Is there something wrong?”

“Yes.” He glares at the scant space between the two of them. “This.”

He leaves the room without another word and slams the door behind him. Gwen stares at the space where he had been, a tangled snarl of worry and anger weighing heavy in her stomach.

She takes care to avoid the area of the castle where Merlin’s chambers are while she goes through the rest of her day—if Merlin doesn’t want to see her, she won’t confront him until he has a few days of rest. He deserves that much from her. It is easy enough to do; Camelot is sweltering in high summer, and she spends most of the day airing out rooms in the castle with the other chambermaids in between bringing the king his meals. The sun is still high overhead in the mid-afternoon when she goes to draw water for Arthur’s washbasin. She splashes some of the cool water, fresh from the well, on her face before she starts the walk back to the castle.

Everyone and everything is sluggish in the heat of the day, from the guards standing by the courtyard gates to the horses in the stables. The pigs are huddled in the shade, too tired even to quarrel over the food someone has thrown into their pen. Gwen pauses next to the fence. That is the bread and venison Merlin had brought into Arthur’s chambers in the morning, lying on the mud in a pigsty. No one wastes food in a castle, least of all a meal of a quality fit for a king. The pages and maids could only eat like that on festival days. 

There must be something wrong with the food—was that why he had been so snappish earlier, and angered at the change in routine? Gwen would have a dynast's treasury, if she had a mark for every time an ambitious lord or knight bribed the kitchen staff to poison the king’s meal. 

But Merlin had wanted Arthur to eat this food. Desperately so. 

Gwen always carries a small knife at her waist, to trim threads at the edges of frayed tapestries and cut the rotten sections out of apples. The blade is fine steel, forged by her mother’s own hands, and her father tried to hide his tears from her when he gave it to her the summer she came of age. She treasures it as one of the few memories of her mother she has left; the wood and leather of the hilt is well-worn from her years and years of use. She draws it now and crouches down to fish out one of the abandoned slices of bread with the tip of the blade. 

The blade blackens on contact with the bread, hissing as it turns cloudy and dull. She jerks away, letting the food fall back to the ground, and stares at the dark slowly spreading up the metal like ink through water.

Merlin tried to kill Arthur.

Gwen fumbles for her kerchief and wraps the blade thrice in the fabric, careful not to touch the metal with her bare fingers, before running back to the castle. There are many things in the citadel that can be used to kill a man. It would be fruitless to check for Merlin in Gaius’ quarters; he has already been there and taken all he needed to create the poison. And because he failed with the poison, he would likely be searching for a more straightforward way to guarantee the king’s death, which means—

“What in the Mother’s name do you think you’re doing?” Gwen shouts as she barrels into the armory.

She stalks up to Merlin and spins him around with a hand on his shoulder. He holds a crossbow in one hand and a bolt in the other, and he is smiling, which makes her skin crawl—Merlin often smiles, but his expression is little more than a grinning mask now, showing nothing. Gwen shakes him by the shoulders. “I thought—I thought you were just tired this morning, but now you’re running around trying to kill Arthur? What in the hells is happening?”

Merlin doesn’t deny it. “You know,” he says, almost wonderingly. “You know I am trying to kill the king, and still you thought it wise to confront me about it. Armed with nothing more than a water pitcher, no less.”

His voice is the one she knows as her friend’s, but the rhythm of it is strange, his pronunciation too smooth and measured. She does not understand his words as his, just as she does not understand his actions—Merlin’s devotion to Arthur is absolute, incomprehensible at times, and she would sooner think of the stars falling from their constellations than think of him as disloyal. This is not him; it must be enchantment or possession or some other form of spellwork, someone else acting through his hands.

“You haven’t changed at all,” Merlin breathes, taking a step towards her. 

His eyes aren’t blank, she realizes. They are brimming with a resolve that is not his own, but she would recognize it anywhere.

It takes Gwen three tries before she can get anything out of her lungs. “Morgana?” she asks weakly.

Merlin aims the crossbow at her chest and fires. It is unloaded, but the whistle of the bowstring still makes her recoil. “ _Boom_ ,” he whispers. 

He winks at her, and she knows. 

Her legs give, and she stumbles back against the far wall, clutching her water pitcher to her chest as she watches Merlin’s fingers loading a bolt into the crossbow with a foreign, liquid ease. The tip gleams with poison, and the motions he performs to check the firing mechanism are imbued with the sort of grace that can only be granted through years of practice. He turns on his heel, languidly striding out of the room without a second glance in her direction.

The _thump_ of Merlin’s body collapsing to the floor is loud, but not as loud as the heartbeat in her ears. She takes great gulping breaths as she stands over him, the pitcher hefted in her hands, tensed for a second strike. Water trickles down her fingers and arms and onto her kirtle, splattering all over the floor.

She wonders distantly if Morgana too had felt the blow.

_I remember the first time I met you. Lord de Bois was bringing his children to the Isles to parade his power before the High Priestesses, desirous of an alliance with the keepers of the Mother’s godhead. I was an acolyte, with hardly enough control over my magic to See into the next sennight. You were two winters short of your coming of age but still bedecked in the pageantry of a high lady, surrounded by a flock of ladies-in-waiting. We were both girls back then, still young and shining. It was high summer, the sort of day when the sky was so bright that it hurt. I caught sight of you from across the river, and you were brighter still, more radiant than any moon or sun or star I had ever seen in my life._

_We walked around the shores of the Isles, dipping our feet into the lapping current. You told me how lovely the beaches were with all the airiness of a carefree girl, but you were looking at the water the whole time, with a hunger that ate at you._

_I saw you and I knew you, Ygraine. I knew you._

“What in the seven hells is that?” Gwen hisses, watching as Gaius pulls a blood-dripping snake from Merlin’s neck.

“A Fomorroh.” The physician says the unfamiliar word casually, his hands steady as he extracts the last of the snake’s tail. “A magical snake that influences the mind. They come in pairs. A dark sorcerer would keep one and implant the other in the neck of the person they wish to control.”

He sets the snake down onto a tray, and it starts to twist back towards Merlin with wet, squelching sounds. Gwen picks up the writhing creature with a pair of forger’s tongs. She thrusts the animal into the fire of the hearth, working the fire as hot as a wood fire can burn with the small hand-bellows sitting on the hearth-stones. The smell of flesh burning makes her stomach turn, but her hands do not waver as the tongs grow warm between her fingers. When she worked at the forge with her father when she was young, the whole surface of her palms was callused and rough from metal burns. She now holds the snake in the fire until it is nothing more than ash and the tongs are hot enough to make her hands turn red.

“Unfortunately, some Fomorroh pairs have a nasty tendency to regenerate. If we’re lucky, he’ll wake up as himself, but if we’re not—” Gaius frowns. “Within a couple hours of waking up, he might be back to trying to kill Arthur. I can sedate the Fomorroh if it regenerates and give him back his senses for a few hours, but—that is not a permanent solution. Both halves must be killed for their influence to wane fully.”

Gwen sets the tongs aside and unwraps her knife from her kerchief, throwing the fabric on top of the embers and holding the blade into the flame so that the poison is burned away. She will have to clean the knife carefully after this is all over, burnish it back to its old gleam. Behind her, she can hear Gaius tidying up his surgeon’s tools, washing his knife and short pincers in vinegar and salt, and then with lye soap. 

“I have a question,” she says slowly, drawing her knife from the flames and polishing it with the hem of her dress. “How come you know so much about magic?”

“I am a physician, Gwen,” Gaius replies. The old physician has never been cut out for politics, for as long as she has known him—he sounds entirely vehement, too earnest for her casual inquiry. “It is my duty to know about all ailments and threats to the body of the court.”

“Gaius.” Gwen turns around and sheathes her knife in its scabbard. She gestures for him to give her his knife and pincers so she can finish their cleaning in the fire. “Surely you don’t think I’m going to turn you in, are you?”

Gaius' smile is rueful. “Old habits are hard to break, my dear.” He settles on the hearth next to where she sits. “I swore my allegiance to Uther and renounced my magic. I have not touched the magical arts since then. I do not think I can, now.”

Gwen starts to heat the knife on the tray. She burns it until it blackens and then rubs the soot off with a fresh cloth. She does the pincers next. “Did you know about Morgana?”

He sighs, the sound heavy and labored. “I did. I knew what her dreams signified.”

The clatter of Gwen dropping the heated pincers on the tray is loud. “So you drugged her to make her dreams go away.” She cleans them with brusque strokes of the cloth. “And you never told her about her abilities.”

“I wanted to protect her.”

She can still hear Morgana’s cries, even now. Gaius always knew what to say whenever magic struck. He said that he wanted to protect them all, to heal the wounded and hurt, but who has he saved, in the course of his years in the court? Who has he damned in the name of his loyalty to the crown? “How many have you protected, Gaius?” she asks out loud.

Gaius’s lips thin at the accusation in her tone. “My dear—I ask that you not speak to that which you do not know.”

Who held Morgana, the nights she screamed her throat hoarse? Who snuck children out of Camelot before they could burn on the pyre? Who watched as her own father was slain by the king for something he did not know? Gwen stares into the fire, working her jaw in silence. 

“You should leave now,” Gaius decides. “I might need to sedate the Fomorroh if it regenerates after Merlin wakes up, and that process can be sick-inducing.”

Gwen rises to her feet, brushing the dust from her skirts. “Tell me when he wakes up?” she asks at last.

The physician nods, and Gwen takes her leave. At least they agree in their care for Merlin.

She lingers for the rest of the afternoon in the corridor of the apothecary’s rooms, bringing the wall-hangings out into the little courtyard and beating out the dust trapped in their threads. The sun is setting, but the air is still hot and stagnant. She is re-hanging the cleaned tapestries when she hears the doorway to Gaius’ chambers open. Merlin hurries into the hall, wearing his travelling cloak. His footsteps are loud on the stone of the hallway; he must be wearing the heavy boots he only wears when he plans on taking a horse. Gwen hangs up the last of the tapestries before hurrying for the stables, cutting through the main hall where the lords are milling as they wait for the bell to call them to supper. She rounds the corner to the stables to see Merlin preparing his tack by firelight. He adjusts the buckles on his saddles with a steady hand, holding his torch with the other—

—except he is using both hands to adjust the straps, and the flickering illumination in the stables is coming not from a torch but rather from an orb of pale flame hovering just above his shoulder.

Gwen’s first instinct is to draw her knife and advance, and demand what Morgana is doing, how her connection through the Fomorroh is so strong that she can channel her power through Merlin’s hands. Her second urge, hurrying on the heels of the first, is to yank Merlin away from the open doorway of the stables and into a corner before anyone can see him, enchantment or no. There are guards standing just on the other side of the courtyard, who are bidden by the king's law to kill at the first sign of sorcery. Gwen makes herself stay in place through sheer force of will. It is easy enough for the mind to assume that a flame is attached to a candle or torch, and the king's men are less than attentive with the ends of their shifts so close. Morgana's powers might be fuelling the flames, but Merlin's life would be forfeit, should there be a commotion now. 

Merlin gallops past her into the evening, the flame flitting in front of him like a small bird. Gwen swears under her breath. She doesn't have the time to alert the others, not if Merlin is already riding off to meet Morgana under the enchantment. She cannot leave him alone to his fate. And Morgana—Morgana is out there.

She saddles her own pony, striking up one of the traveller’s torches set in the bucket by the stables’ entrance so she can see through the dark, before setting off after him. The guards standing next to the gates guffaws as she passes them—undoubtedly, by dinnertime, the castle will be filled with rumors of the torrid new affair between the king’s favorite and the king’s manservant. She urges her horse on nevertheless.

The twinkle of Merlin’s bird-light is easy to follow. The night air is clear; she can see straight down the road to where it snakes into the forest. So close to the castle’s guards, the chance of encountering brigands is low, even at night. Gwen rides into the forest without hesitation, guiding her horse over the fallen branches and the noisy patches of fallen leaves underfoot. She has ridden in these forests since she was a child—leaning back against her father’s chest when she was still too short to set her feet in the stirrups on a saddle, fighting with Morgana to let her ride the palfrey Uther had given his ward on her thirteenth name day—but Merlin’s horse is still faster than hers. She keeps him in her line of vision, but only just. They break out of the forest into the rolling plains which slope downwards towards the river. The sky overhead is ink-black, with no moon, and the stars stretch out like an ocean of spilled salt. Merlin makes for the low valley, and Gwen spurs her horse on with only a moment’s pause.

Every child in Camelot knows the story of the Valley of Midir—the Valley of the Fallen Kings, they call it, whenever they tell stories by the bonfires. They say that an enormous dragon slumbers there, or an ancient monster with a hundred heads and a hundred hands, or an army of ghosts who prey on the life force of travellers. No one likes to go there; the air makes the skin crawl, they say, and the earth rumbles strangely under every step. Gwen has been through the Valley before. She does not know much about magical presences, but she knows that there are no monsters there. But there are other stories whispered in the lower town about the place, which have more truth to them than the others—that the Valley had once been lush and growing, and that a hundred sorcerers had taken a stand in front of the gates to the Isles of the Blessed, when the Purges started. Uther and his army barricaded them there until they starved and withered away, and then the king burned them, but their bones still remain. The Valley is a graveyard—not for kings, but for scores of the innocent who died and were forgotten. 

Merlin dismounts and ties his horse to a scraggly tree. Gwen does the same when she comes to the mouth of the valley, stroking a soothing hand down her pony’s side before making her way into the gloom, picking her way through the moss and leaves that litter the ground. There are abandoned houses all along the valley, their beams rotting, reminders of the souls who once lived and learned along the river. Gwen can see the remnants of chairs and wagons. Herb pots. Hand-looms.

The Valley is empty. She can see no other living soul. In the distance, there is a house that is more whole than the others. It must be where Morgana is staying, because Merlin goes into it without hesitation, and the broken windows are suddenly flooded with a warm glow. Try as she might, Gwen cannot see what he is doing inside.

There is a rustle of footsteps from the distance. Gwen ducks behind one of the shells of the houses lining the bank, crouching next to a boulder and extinguishing her torch in a pool of silt-clouded water. Someone emerges from the dark, draped in a shadowy cloak. Pale fingers come up to pull back the cloak’s hood, and Gwen claps her hands over her mouth to keep from crying out, because she can only see black hair and a sliver of the woman’s ear and cheek, but she knows her nonetheless. She always knows her. Her throat goes dry, and her eyes well up, because it is Morgana, whom she has not seen in so long, and for a moment all she can think of is how her lady’s hair should not be so tangled, because Gwen is careful to braid it up at night, and those moments were once the favorites of her days, when she would comb and braid Morgana’s hair and they would talk about anything and everything in the world—

Merlin. Merlin is in the house, under Morgana's sway. Morgana has come for Merlin.

Gwen doesn't have anything to fight with other than her knife and herself. She draws her blade as she rises from her place behind the boulder. The drag of metal against leather might as well be the twang of a bowstring in the quiet of the night, and Morgana whirls around, searching for the source of the sound. The full sight of her makes Gwen still, her knife arm falling to her side, useless. Her face is thin and shadowed, like she hasn't been sleeping. Her expression is caught between shock and a voltaic eagerness, and Gwen had planned to confront her or condemn her, anything to distract Morgana until Gwen somehow finds a way to free Merlin, but when she looks at her, too many things gather her throat, babbling and raging and pleading all at once, and their combined force makes her words fall away entirely.

“My lady,” she whispers, unable to muster anything more.

Behind Morgana, Merlin's figure creeps through the open door of the house, a jar clutched between his hands, his head bowed. He doesn’t so much as look up. The wood creaks under his foot, and Morgana smiles. She turns and _points_ , and flame arcs from her hand, hurtling towards Merlin’s head. 

Merlin shouts. Gwen cannot understand the syllables he hurls into the air, but they make Gwen’s eardrums feel as though they are being shredded with a knife. At that moment, his eyes flash like the birth of dawn, with a light no earthly gaze can hold, and Gwen falls to her knees from the wind that blasts through the valley, howling loud enough to make her head ring. 

She pushes herself up once the wind subsides, huddling against the tall boulder in front of her. Her heart thunders in her ears even over the wind as she peers over the rock to where Morgana and Merlin are fighting in earnest now. Fire and wind whirl about them like rain in a seething storm, and Merlin—

Merlin has magic.

The light in the stables hadn't been Morgana's. It was Merlin's all along, because Merlin—has magic. The Fomorroh must have regenerated, and Merlin had left the citadel to search for the other half of the pair and destroy it. Merlin, who has magic, but always takes it upon himself to save his king, by all and any means. 

Merlin, with his fool’s bravery. Merlin, with his saint’s luck, who follows Arthur into battle with nothing more than the shirt on his back and his great and unyielding devotion, who seems to know more about the perils besieging Camelot than the knights themselves, who can always open doors and strike a fire from his flint and steel, even on the stormiest of nights—of course he has magic, of course he does, and how could he be such a fool, so as to come to Camelot and serve Uther’s son when he has magic? 

How can he so be stupid with his own life?

Gwen watches helplessly as he and Morgana battle, filling the air with flashes which sear like the noonday sun. A gale spins from Morgana’s hand and blasts Merlin back five paces, but he staggers back to his feet, thrusting his free hand out and batting her to the side with the ease of a child toppling over a wicker doll. Lightning crackles around her arms as she falls. She claws herself upright and clenches her hands in front of her. Flames ignite in her palms, blossoming with the swiftness of clouds, and she hurls them at Merlin, who knocks them to the side with sharp jerks of his hand. The fallen leaves are caught in the whirlwind he whips about him. His eyes shine in the gloom, gold from side to side. He lifts his hands, and they are wreathed in brightness.

Morgana screams, slamming her hand down on the ground at the moment Merlin cuts through the air to strike. The shockwave that emanates from the clash of their attacks makes the earth and air shriek. Gwen curls in on herself, shielding her ears with her hands. She thinks she might be crying out, but she cannot hear it above the clamor.

When the world subsides enough for her to rise, Gwen levers herself up to her feet and turns to the clearing in a daze. Merlin and Morgana are both lying on the ground. She stumbles over to Merlin and checks his pulse. He is alive. The jar he took from the house is on the ground next to his limp hand, and she gingerly takes it up. There is something writhing inside. Almost against her will, she glances at Morgana’s still form. She shouldn’t be dead. If Merlin isn’t dead, then she can’t be, either. She can’t be. Gwen reaches to check her pulse with a trembling hand.

“Don’t touch her.”

Gwen recoils at the voice, clutching the jar close. There is a woman standing in the doorway of the house. The clothes she wears hang loosely around her gaunt form, laces half-undone over her chest. Her blonde hair is matted around her scarred face, and there are bloodstained bandages wrapped around her neck and what Gwen can see of her torso. She leans against the post of the door, exhaustion and pain clear in her gritted teeth and pallid features. 

“It’s you,” Gwen says blankly. Morgause was the one who started it all, who took Morgana away and showed her the extent of her power and her family's betrayal. Morgause was Morgana's sister by blood, and Gwen was her best friend by nurture, and Gwen had hoped desperately that she was strong enough to counter the other woman's influence. She wasn't.

Elyan and the rest of the knights all told her that Morgause had died, sacrificed by Morgana on the shores of the Isles of the Blessed to tear open the Veil and let the souls of the Dorocha into the land of the living. Are the dead truly walking in the Valley?

“It’s unfortunate, isn’t it?” Morgause’s eyes flicker down to the knife Gwen is brandishing. Her laugh is ragged, the sound barely recognizable for what it is. “The Mother is a contrary bastard when she wants to be. She released the dead as repayment for the Purges, and she wouldn’t have her revenge cheapened by us trying to tip her.” Her lips twist in the shadow of a smile. “How does it feel to serve a kingdom so bloodied that the Mother herself wants to destroy it?”

She might be lying, but Gwen doesn't see any falsehood in her words. An eye for an eye, a hand for a hand, until justice is served and there is no one left to rebuild the cities razed. The gods have the luxury of such vengeance, but Gwen is only human. “I want nothing to do with the justice of gods,” she says, flexing her fingers around her knife. “And I don’t want to hurt either of you. Just let me bring him back.”

“You still claim him as your friend? Even when you know he possesses the evil of magic?”

“I see it as no evil.” Gwen steps forward and raises her knife.

Morgause scoffs. “And yet still you stand by your king. I probably have enough left in me to kill you.” She limps over and hooks her arms under Morgana’s, hauling her into the house. “But that’d kill me as well. Not worth it. The sepsis should get a fair shot.”

Morgause’s breathing is labored and rough. She struggles with her every step as she drags Morgana up the stairs and over the threshold, but when Gwen moves to help her, she snarls, revealing all her teeth. “Go. Take the snake with you. I told her it was a fool’s gambit.” 

They are mostly through the door now, and Gwen can only watch. “Bringing a sorcerer back to the butcher’s city—maybe Morgana was wrong about you,” Morgause grunts. “Maybe you’re a sadist after all. No different from the rest of us.”

She slams the door behind her before Gwen can muster a response. 

The snake hisses and screams after Gwen empties the jar into Gaius’ fireplace. She holds it into the heart of the flame with her tongs until it stops moving. Gaius tosses the other snake, scarlet with Merlin’s blood, into the flame, and Gwen watches them until they are ash. The whole room smells of burning things.

“Is it over?” Arthur asks from behind them.

“It should be,” Gaius decides. “He will wake up as fully himself, to the best of my knowledge, sire.”

Gwen puts the tongs aside. Her head is throbbing—she is no longer a child naive enough to believe that the monsters would be gone if she burrows beneath her blankets and hides from the light, but a good night’s sleep would still make her feel less like snapping at anyone who so much as speaks in her vicinity.

There is a gentle touch at the back of her neck. She fights the urge to flinch away. He means the best. He really does. She thinks she should be comforted by the warm hands massaging at the tension in her neck and shoulders. Maybe she is, and she is just too tired to tell. 

“Thank you, Gwen,” Arthur murmurs. “For bringing him back.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for.” That much at least is true.

“Riding out into the Valley by yourself, without another soul at your back—there are trained men who wouldn’t dare that.” Arthur laughs ruefully. “My uncle was completely convinced that you skipped supper with me to start an illicit affair. But instead, you were saving Merlin.”

Look at how good he thinks she is—a good friend, a good lover, a good subject of his kingdom. It should take her aback, how easily she commits treason nowadays. Harboring a sorcerer is still the second-greatest crime in Camelot, second only to being one, and the only thing she is debating now is whether or not she should tell Merlin that she knows.

Arthur is still talking. “You needn’t risk your life so heedlessly, though. What if Morgana had still been there when you came?”

Gwen inclines her head, staring into the fire. “I got lucky.” That’s not much of a lie, either.

“Promise me you’ll at least take someone to protect you, next time.”

Gwen turns around, dislodging his hands from her shoulders. “I’m fine now,” she says. “Aren’t I?”

“Yes, and I thank the Mother for that.”

He leans down and kisses her on the forehead, and she steers his head away. “I reek of the Valley,” she says with a wrinkle of her nose. “And you should be getting some sleep. We’ve all had precious little of it over the past few days.”

Arthur nods, hugging her again. He stares over her shoulder at Merlin’s sleeping form until he tears himself away and pads out the door, rubbing at his temples. The full picture of him—nightshirt, bare feet, hair sticking up at the back of his head—more than anything else makes the heaviness in her chest lighten a little. It reminds her of when they had all been—if not friends, then at least comfortable in their differences, back when they were young, and he had the luxury of being able to roll out of bed and come to court with scruffy hair.

She rises from her seat. “I should be heading back too, Gaius,” she mumbles through a yawn. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“Of course, my dear.” Gaius’ eyes are narrowed. “Though—I do have to ask again. You told me that you found Merlin unconscious on the ground, yes? Outside of an empty old house in the Valley of the Fallen Kings. Are you sure that there was no one else there?”

“I told you, I found him,” she says again, meeting Gaius’ gaze squarely and earnestly. “In that clearing. He was knocked unconscious from something, I don’t know what.” She looks over to Merlin, bandaged around his neck with clean cloth. It makes her think of Morgause, and she shudders. The shudder, at least, is easy to explain away. “Gaius—do you worry that he’s still enchanted? Is it truly over?”

Gaius’ face relaxes, the stiffness fading from his posture. He pats her on the shoulder. “I hope so, Gwen. I truly do.” 

He believes her so easily that it increases both her resentment and her guilt. She goes back to her chambers, her stomach roiling. She had planned on telling Arthur and Gaius about Morgana and Morgause. She truly had. But then she watched as Arthur held Merlin to his chest, and wondered if he would still do that if he knew the gold lurking in Merlin’s blood, wondered if he would hang him for his father’s law. She thought of soldiers descending on the Valley, and the earth there once again running with blood. 

She thought of Morgause’s labored breath, her persistence in saving Morgana though every movement caused her pain. She thought of Morgana under the gleaming moon. 

When is it ever over?

The silence of her room gives her no answer. Camelot has been locked in one war or another since before Gwen was old enough to know about what happens in battle—Uther subdued his kingdom with fire and steel, and so he could never let his sword dull for as long as he was king. War seeps into all things, like mildew through plaster. Gwen remembers when Morgana was a half-year past her sixteenth name-day, and she was approaching hers, and the celebrations for the crown prince’s fifteenth name-day were being planned for the hottest days of the year. It was the hot month between summer and spring, when everything was young and green and growing, and they stole away from the guards assigned to them and slipped into the forest. 

Gwen had no love for Arthur then, and he none for her, but they put aside their differences for the afternoon and ran carelessly, laughing as they slipped on leaves and moss. Arthur and Morgana had their practice swords with them, steel blades that still hurt, no matter how dulled they were. Gwen settled on a fallen log and braided flowers into a crown, her fingers moving with the unthinking ease of practice as she watched them spar. They whooped and shouted as they landed particularly impressive hits, and Gwen called out for them to watch their footwork whenever she saw them slipping.

Morgana knocked her brother over, disarming him with a neat twist of her sword. She whooped in triumph as she picked up his fallen blade from the forest floor, brandishing it at his bare neck with a flourish, and Gwen clapped, grinning at the decisive victory and at the leaves incongruously tangled in her lady’s braided hair. Arthur rolled his eyes as Morgana helped him up.

 _For the victor,_ Gwen said, and she crowned her lady with her little braid of violets.

 _My lady,_ Morgana said, bowing deeply to her.

In the light, Morgana's eyes were green and glittering. Gwen can still hear the precise intonation of those words even now. She thinks of the maps on Arthur’s desk, marked with red ink where swathes of lifeblood had been spilt on their land, and of two women finding refuge in the land of the Valley, among the corpses of houses. She hadn’t known it would lead to this, when they were young and playing at kingdoms.


	3. Strange, Lowly Creatures

“Gaius said you saved my life,” Merlin says to her. He fiddles with a loose thread on the cuffs of his jacket. “Thank you, Gwen.”

Gwen sets her water pitcher aside and hugs him hard. He’s still alive. She needs to make sure he stays that way. Gods and hells, he didn’t even know she followed him. How can he be so bedamned careless? “You have nothing to thank me for.”

He ducks his head. “I do. Believe me, I do.” He pulls away. “I wanted to ask, though. Did you—see anything? When you were in the Valley?”

She has always valued Merlin for his candor and openness. It stuns her now, watching as he fidgets, how he managed to keep his magic hidden for so long. She can read his every thought in the darting of his eyes, his worried gnawing at a corner of his lip. How has no one found out about him by now? 

But then again—even she never did before last night. No one suspects, because no one would think that an earnest, clumsy manservant to the king could harbor magic. Gwen is all too familiar with how easily the regard of dismissive nobility skips over the unassuming. She would be a hypocrite if she held that against him.

“I saw you,” Gwen tells Merlin. “Lying on the ground like a dead man.” She punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Never do that to me again.”

He will tell her when he is ready. She still wants to shake him, but she will give him that much. 

She starts to spend more time going through the motions of her old duties, staying away from the councils and court gatherings in favor of sewing and sweeping and weaving. She excuses herself nearly every day from dinner with the king, claiming tiredness. Merlin starts to think that she had been attacked by Morgana while following him through the Valley of Midir. He gives her tonics to restore her energy, hovering around the doorway to Morgana’s old chambers with guilty steps. Arthur worries that his uncle’s influence has frightened her away entirely. He brings her sweet fruit and old maps to scrape for parchment, the sort of things she would have once thrilled to receive. There are things a woman in love might do in her position—demand that he choose between his family and her, or ask for reassurances in the form of a betrothal ring. She doesn’t have the conviction to do either of those anymore.

The summer is the hottest Gwen can remember. Gwen goes through half the days convincing herself that she can still breathe through the heavy crush of the heat. The heat is even worse for those who are unused to summers in the castle—Imogen spends most of her time in the sewing room standing with her hands braced on the windowsill, trying to catch a breeze.

“I hate this place,” she mutters as she slides back into her chair. “It’s all the stone. It traps the heat in.”

“I loved it when I first came here.” Gwen runs her fingers over the metallic flowers on her deep red panel, now in full bloom. “But—I see your point. This summer more than most.”

“I wish I loved it.” Imogen picks up her sewing again. “It’d be easier that way.”

Gwen considers Imogen in the lull that follows. Her fingers do not stumble as they move across the fabric, steady as soldiers marching, but her gaze is fixed on the middle distance, too stony for the youth of her face. There are some who would brand what Imogen says every day as treason, a crime like that of magic, but Gwen has never once tried to stop her. 

“Why did you come here?” Gwen asks. “If you hate it so much.”

“I had to take my sister’s place.” 

Gwen had not expected an answer when she asked the question, and Imogen's reply startles her badly enough for her to set her fabric aside. Imogen continues, ignoring Gwen's faltering. “She had been—burned. For using magic. She wasn’t even the one with magic, but my mother and father need the income. So I came. But I—”

But she is still so angry that she thinks she would rather die than serve a Pendragon, and she might very well die. Imogen does not have to speak out loud for Gwen to understand what she must barely be holding back. What is it with this castle and too-brave fools? “You should not be telling me this.” Gwen punctuates her words with vehement tugs of her needle. “You should not be telling anyone this, much less someone as close to the king as me. Not now, when everyone is so afraid of Morgana.”

“But that’s just it.” Imogen leans in, triumphant and intent. “The way you say her name.”

“I don’t follow her,” Gwen says sharply. “Camelot has my allegiance. And Arthur.”

“I never questioned that,” Imogen counters. “But there are things beyond allegiance, aren’t there?” She looks to the window, and the sun dappling the treetops outside. “I’d heard stories of the Lady Morgana when I was younger. She was loved by everyone in the town; they said she was beautiful, and brave. And then—the army. She had an army of soldiers who couldn’t die, and she crowned herself queen, and I thought—”

“Don’t,” Gwen shushes her, and for all that she mourned the men Morgana killed and helped the dynasts regain their throne, she still finds herself saying, “Imogen—I know. I know.”

When they were both still young enough to speak of such treasonous things aloud, so young that they sometimes slept in the same bed so they could giggle and chatter well into the late hours of the night, Morgana would tell Gwen that she was going to grow up and be a better king than Uther. It didn't matter that Camelot already had a crown prince—she would still be a better king. A kinder king. A wiser king. A king who didn't burn the innocent. And in those early hours of the morning, when anything seemed possible, Gwen chose to cast aside all she knew of their kingdom in favor of believing her wholly. 

“They talk about her as they would a monster. Everyone does. Except for you.”

“Monsters are made in the eyes of others.” Gwen looks down at the flowers in her lap. “She is no more a monster than you or I, if you and I had spent our lives in constant fear.”

“If that is the case, then I am also a monster.”

Imogen’s jaw is set square and proud, and her eyes are blazing. Gwen’s first instinct is to tell her to run, run as far away as she possibly could, to leave Camelot and never come back, because Camelot crushed Morgana and it would crush her, too, with even more unwarranted cruelty.

But Camelot is Imogen’s home. Where her mother and father and lover are. Where she grew and ran. Gwen is not fool enough to ask her to leave so lightly. 

“You are not,” Gwen tells her. She never had the chance to say these words to Morgana, so she weighs them carefully now. “No one is.”

Imogen's fingers fumble on her needle mid-stitch. “That’s treason,” she says, her voice fragile as glass. She says her accusation with the opposite of censure and jerks her head away from Gwen’s view, pressing at her eyes with her palms before picking up her needle again. Her fingers are clumsy, bunching her stitches with uncharacteristic hesitation. 

“I—don’t say this. Damn it. I don’t. But when you are queen—” Imogen starts thickly. Both of Imogen’s hands are now clenched in the fabric spilling all over her chair. She might be crying, but Gwen cannot tell. She is still turned away. Gwen wonders how old she is—eighteen or nineteen summers at most, for all her bravery and bluntness. She has never asked, and Imogen has never told her. 

“I believe in you, my lady—Gwen. When you are queen, you will change things—”

“Do not be so quick to trust in me,” Gwen cuts across her. Her eyes are suddenly hot and prickling, and she finds herself confessing, "I don't want that anymore. I—I don't think I can, Imogen, I _can’t_." 

It is the first time she has said it to anyone else.

Imogen is curled in on herself, shielding her face from view. “Do you want me to leave?” Gwen asks, setting her embroidery back into her basket. It takes all she has, to keep her movements steady.

Imogen nods without lifting her head. “Just—for a bit.”

“Of course,” Gwen says. She rises from her seat, averting her gaze from Imogen’s tears. “I’ll—get you some water.” 

She can hear Imogen break into sobs right as she closes the door. Gwen walks over to an alcove in the corridor and sits down, and she tries not to do the same. When she comes back into the room with water for them both, Imogen is sewing again. Her cheeks are wet with salt, but her back is straight, and her hands are steady as they have ever been.

_We didn’t see each other for years after that. I remembered you the same way I remembered my dreams. Sometimes, I thought I had dreamt you entirely—the little goddess, haughty and prideful and adored by her hero-brothers, who revolved in their orbit around you like the traveling stars around the sun. Sometimes, I hoped I had dreamt you, because no one should shine so bright in life._

_You might have forgotten this in Domnonée, lofty in your white castle across the sea, but we are but human—strange, lowly creatures. We are not meant to put the gods to shame._

The months between Midsummer and the harvest are held by many to be the worst time of the year, hot and dull and suffocating. Nobility take any opportunity to celebrate in the sweltering season, even in a good year, and with Morgana’s attacks growing bolder by the day and the stillness in the air getting ever heavier, the castle is desperate for festivities. When a knight gallops through the courtyard, his cloak billowing red behind him, the whole court is set abuzz. From her seat in the sewing room, Gwen imagines she can hear the clamor already rising into the sky.

Except it is not her imagination—there are people shouting outside the window, tossing flowers and singing in joy. Imogen jolts as the door to their room flies open and a chambermaid stumbles in, color high on her cheeks as if she had just run up the stairs. “My lady!” she pants, gesturing at Gwen. “My lady, you must come at once!”

Gwen nods slowly, folding the panel in her lap before following the other woman down the stairs and through the corridors into the main courtyard. People are streaming around her, rushing down the same path, scullery maids and pages and high lords alike. The knight is dismounting, and all Gwen can see of him through the jubilant people is the back of his head, the dark hair brushing over his shoulders.

Her brother is calling her name. “Gwen,” he yells from across the crowd. “Gwen, it’s him, he’s come back—”

The knight turns around, and her knees give out. The sight of him is like a blow to the back of her skull. He still has the scruff she once told him made him look like the cobbler’s son. He is the same as she remembers him. She doesn’t understand. She wonders faintly if she ever even left the Valley.

Elyan shoulders his way through the crowd and drags her to her feet before anyone else can notice her falling. She clings to his hand, letting him support her. Lancelot—is—was—dead. Gone through the Veil. He sacrificed himself to save them all, and Gwen loved him and wept for him and mourned him long and well.

“Sir Lancelot,” Arthur shouts. 

The crowd parts for the king, and he bounds up to the man, pulling him into a hug. “Mother above, Lance, how? _How_? I thought—we all thought—”

Lancelot tries to disentangle himself and bow, but Arthur would have none of it, embracing him again instead. The two chatter like boys as they make their way back to the castle, arms slung around each other, heads bowed together, and Gwen can only watch, her pulse hammering feverishly in her ears. The scorching sun beams down on her, making her head spin. It doesn’t make sense. He had died. The dead cannot walk without someone to assist them. 

That night, Arthur throws an impromptu feast, overjoyed at his chief knight’s miraculous return. Everyone is there to partake—Merlin, who hangs on to Lancelot’s every word as he recounts his return to Camelot; Agravaine, who nurses his wine quietly but seems pleased nonetheless; the council of lords, who have exchanged their usual velvet robes for festival tunics. Gwen considers going down to the kitchens and eating with Imogen and Judith instead, but before she has the chance to leave the hall, Lancelot comes to her. It is beneath the flickering torches of the grand hall that he bends at his waist and bows, taking her hand and kissing her on the knuckles.

“My lady,” he says. His voice is a soft and touchable thing, meant for spaces smaller than the vastness of the hall.

“Lance,” she says blankly. “You—I thought you were dead, Lance.”

“I am sorry to have caused you that pain,” he breathes. His hand lingers on hers as he rises from his bow. “I hope I can make amends for your suffering.”

He regards her in the smoky glow of the torches, and her heart skips a beat in her chest, because it is Morgana's eyes she sees in his face, her relentless ambition, the fierce burn of her anger. Her body goes hot and cold all at once, and she starts laughing from sheer panic, which is very close to the sound of joy. She claps her hand over his mouth before he can say anything, running her fingers over his lips in a daze, and pulls him up the stairs into her white-draped rooms. Gwen doesn’t wait for the door to close behind them before kissing him deeply.

His hands are too warm to be Morgana's. His mouth is too hot—he feels like a forge, like a fever. Like a funeral pyre. She tastes the earth on his tongue, and the stone-rot of animals long dead. Her right hand comes up to stroke his jaw, the smoothness of his skin, the fineness of his beard. It is desperately familiar. She wonders if Morgana can feel the heat of her fingers. Her left hand draws her knife from its sheath and jams it into his stomach, and he falls with a grunt.

The blood running around her knife is watery and black. She spits on the ground next to the corpse, but to no avail. Her mouth still tastes of rot, and she wipes at her lips. Her hands, she realizes, are trembling.

“Gods above, Gwen—”

Arthur rushes out from where he was hiding, and she lets him take her into his arms, checking to make sure she is unharmed. He kisses her on the forehead and tucks her head into his shoulder, murmuring reassurances. His hold is gentle and sure. 

How had he known to come look for her?

"It's Morgana," she tells him, and he goes pale.

He pulls back, running his hands down her arms to grip her hands. “How do you know?”

Her eyes, green and angry. The piercing bite of her gaze. Gwen struggles to find words as she gestures at the body between them, still wheezing on the ground. She can't say such things out loud. “Who else can it be?” She scrubs her hands over her mouth. “I knew it couldn’t be so easy. I knew—”

That miracles do not come without a price. That Morgana would know how to touch Arthur’s heart in the vital spot. That Morgana would come back for her. Did she know it? Did she wish it?

Lancelot’s body starts to laugh, a wet and creaking sound, and Gwen starts to laugh too, and cry as well, because she had loved him and grieved him well when he took his own life to save them all, and there was once a time when she would have given both her eyes and both her hands to have him back. But that time is not now. Now she is only light-headed and furious—at Morgana, for violating the beloved dead; at herself, for feeling so much more than righteous horror.

Arthur shouts for the guards. Armored knights stream into the room and recoil at the sight of them—Lancelot, bleeding black and gurgling with laughter, Gwen weeping and also laughing, and the king rocking her in his hold. They drag Lancelot’s body down to the dungeons at Arthur’s command, and Gwen sinks down to the floor, pulling Arthur with her. Her hand falls into the pool of black blood, and she raises it up to her face and watches as it trickles down her fingers, under her nails, over her palm. She squeezes her hand into a fist, her whole arm quaking from the effort, and the black bubbles up from the crevices between her knuckles like it’s coming out of her.

“I’ll—fetch a chambermaid,” Arthur says shakily. “To wipe this up. We don’t know what it is. Gwen—will you—will you be okay for a moment—”

Gwen nods, and Arthur leaves to find someone to clean up the mess.

_When I saw you again, we were both women come of age. You burned even brighter, ambitious in all the ways the world thought you could not be, but you hid it well. You had fallen in love with a warlord, much to your brothers’ delight, and I watched him bloom under your regard._

_I was a priestess by then, second only to Iphianassa, the Mother’s own chosen. Iphianassa told me that I was lucky that the Mother was not a jealous god. Implacable, contrary, but never jealous. There are women who cannot stand to be in her service—Vivienne, who had been chosen to stand where Iphianassa now does, forswore her and her arts entirely in favor of a life as a courtier, unable to bear the strangeness of divine logic. Unlike her, I am content in my service to an implacable Goddess in all her forms. Perhaps that is what makes me so ready to devote myself to you._

_Even when I hadn’t touched you, I knew that I would never leave you. Not when your brothers and father scoffed at me for being an acolyte of magic. Not when you married a man with blood and steel writ clear in his every feature. No matter how many times you chose someone other than me, I knew you would come back and tell it all to me, spend your summers in the Isles, where Agravaine and Tristan and Uther never deigned to follow you._

_This would all be easier if I had learned to leave you. Or maybe none of this would be happening, if I had. But then I would not have you to love. And even now, as the future grows redder and redder, I would still choose that above all things._

The guard outside of the dungeon door frowns at her when she commands him to let her inside. “I’m sorry, my lady,” he dithers, “but His Majesty told us to be wary of letting you in to see the prisoner. He doesn’t want you to come to harm through the sorceress’ enchantments—”

“I never said you couldn't be wary,” Gwen says levelly. “In fact, you can watch from the outside to make sure I leave unsullied.”

“I—of course, my lady.” He bows and unhooks the smaller ring of keys from his belt, setting the metal into her hand. “Make sure you re-fasten the lock on the inside. And that you don’t let him—the sorceress—get to the keys.”

Does he take her for a child or for a fool? Gwen smiles tightly and takes the keys, drawing the outer bolt and bringing the heavy lock with her to the other side. She fastens the metal in place and secures the keys at her waist before venturing into the dark. There is only one cell occupied in the whole of the row. She makes her way to stand in front of it, and the keys on her belt clang with her every step. Behind her locked door, the guard is muttering to a knight; she thinks he might have said, _Go tell His Majesty_.

Lancelot’s face shows between the bars of his cell, pale and wan. “My lady,” he gasps, reaching out a hand to her. “I knew you would come back for me. You must convince Arthur, Gwen, this is all a horrible mistake, you have to get me out of—” 

“You shut your damn mouth!” Gwen screams. 

The words burst from her like blood from a puncture, ripping the cage of her chest open. “You dare to violate the sacred sleep of the dead—and for what? To come back here and ruin me? Is that why you’re here, Morgana?” Her voice has risen to a shout again, and she balls her fists at her sides, trembling from the force of the thing bubbling up inside of her. “To ruin us?”

Lancelot’s voice starts laughing, a grating parody of the sweet sound she remembers. “What has happened to you, my lady? I have always idolized you for your kindness, and this is the treatment I receive from you?”

“You don’t get to speak like that to me anymore. You are dead,” Gwen spits. She stares his body in the eyes. He isn't even here. She has already wept for him. She refuses to do it again.

“I thought you would want to see me again.” Lancelot sighs, settling back against the wall of his cell. “I thought you loved me.”

She did. She does. “Stop hiding behind a dead man’s face and talk to me yourself.”

“Do you still?” There is an eager gleam dancing in his irises. “Do you love me, Gwen? Even though you are beloved of a king? Do you want to save me?”

“He is dead,” Gwen snarls. “He can’t be saved. You—”

“But I’m not dead. I’m here, aren’t I?” Morgana has always been good at twisting the knife, but Gwen wonders if she even realizes a fraction of the unique cruelty she is showing in her casual taunts of devotion. She curses the imprecision of their common tongue. “I didn’t come back to ruin anyone—I came back for you. Only for you. I don’t care about the kingdom, or the king. You only need to help me escape this piteous cell, and then we can run away from this all and never come back.”

“No.” Gwen shakes her head. “No, no—”

“I love you,” he says, a yearning whisper. “I challenged death for you, I came back for you, I love you—”

“Then why won’t you talk to me?”

Silence falls.

Lancelot has stopped feigning adoration. His expression is lightless, blank and unfeeling, and Gwen lets herself feel a faint and tired triumph. Behind her, she can hear footsteps in the main corridor, and someone she knows muttering her name, but they seem a world away. She doesn’t bother to correct what she has just said. She doesn’t care enough about propriety to lie anymore. “Stop hiding, Morgana.” The sounds leave her deep and broken. “Talk to me—look at me, damn you, talk to me—”

Lancelot’s head drops between his shoulders, and when it is raised again, his eyes are lit from within. "But I thought you wanted me to _shut my damn mouth._ "

Gwen sinks back against the far wall. Her legs are as wobbly as a frightened colt's, and she slides down to sit on the dusty flooring. Her voice hasn't changed. It is Lancelot’s body and Lancelot’s face, but it is Morgana’s voice pouring from his throat, low and liquid. Gwen was the one who pleaded to hear it, but she does not know what to do, now that she has. 

“Mother's hells,” Gwen breathes, rubbing her hands against her temples. She shifts over so Lancelot’s corpse is no longer in her line of sight and tilts her head against the stone behind her, letting her eyes fall shut. 

There must be something gone wrong in the throats of the dead—Morgana's speech sounds like what Gwen remembers, but her laugh is soured, strange and grating like the scrape of sand. Or is that been how her laugh would have always sounded, had she not been constrained by fear and propriety? 

“You shouldn’t be speaking like that, Guinevere. That’s my job.”

She sounds the same as Gwen remembers. If she doesn't laugh, and if Gwen doesn't look up, it almost seems like Morgana is in front of her, living blood and bone, close enough to touch. She still wants to pretend, even now, even here.

"Why?" Gwen finally asks. "Why, Morgana?"

"It's like you said." She can hear Morgana’s curving smile. "To ruin you."

"You could have done that through a curse. A plague. By sending your men into the city at night to slit my throat in my sleep." That is what the dread sorceress whose name is never spoken aloud by the lords and ladies of the court would do. "So why go to the effort of puppeting a dead man's body?"

"Because I wanted to have some fun." There is a fire underlying her words, which Gwen can see all too clearly in her mind. "And there are things worse than a simple death. I didn't want to kill you. It worked, didn't it? You came running back to your old beloved."

"No." Gwen is still squeezing her eyes shut. “No, it didn’t.”

"Oh? And who were you pulling up to my old rooms last night, and kissing like the end-days have come?"

There is bile rising in Gwen's throat. It is one thing to know the truth but another to speak it, yet Gwen still does. She says aloud, "You."

One syllable, heavy and final as the swing of an executioner's axe. Gwen opens her eyes and stares resolutely at the wall in front of her, but she sees nothing save for green and gold.

"When did you know?" Morgana’s cocksure sneer has vanished. Something indescribable is left behind.

"I knew from the first." Gwen wants to scream again, so she does, crying out and laughing both at once, and the sound that leaves her throat is no different from Morgana's laugh. "I saw your eyes in his face. I saw you, Morgana. That’s why I kissed you."

There is a too-familiar gasp from just outside the dungeons, and Gwen flushes, hot and patchy. She knows that voice, that glimmer of red cloak outside from the barred window she can catch from the corner of her vision. There are footsteps, and a slamming door, and then it is silent again. A heavy sinking seeps through her chest.

She loves him. She had once adored him. Sometimes, she still wants to.

"What else have you come back to ruin, my lady?" Gwen asks, letting her head come to rest on her folded knees.

“What have I ruined for you, truly? This is hardly the vaunted love I’ve heard so much about.” Morgana laughs again. “You can’t be his queen when you are so easily swayed from him.”

Gwen lifts her head. “Queen?” she pronounces carefully.

“I saw it. You, at the head of his table. Him, delighting in you. The people, hailing your name.” She can hear the mocking lilt in Morgana’s voice. “Don’t try to deny it, Gwen. I would never demean you so much so as to believe that you are ambitionless.”

A blacksmith’s daughter, crowned as royal and beloved. The dream of all little serving girls. Except that has never been Gwen’s dream, to be Arthur's queen—she has little love for titles, though Camelot is her kingdom. If she were to serve any crown, it would be the land’s; not a man’s, no matter how much she adored him, and she cannot even bring herself to care about that now. The weight of the summer has long trodden her hopes for fall to dust. 

“That throne is mine,” Morgana rasps. “I will have no one else take it, not even you.”

Gwen can too easily imagine Morgana's snarl, the green in her gaze lit by her anger, but when she turns towards the cell, it is Lancelot’s face she sees, slack and empty save for his smile. It frightens her, how quickly she had forgotten about the body across from her. He always had a kind smile, so wide it crinkled his eyes, but now it stretches at his lips, contorted into a mummer's grimace. His eyes are black from side to side and reveal nothing. She jolts to her feet and skitters away, clapping her hands over to her mouth to keep from screaming, and Morgana’s smile grows, revealing all of Lancelot’s teeth. Gwen all but runs for the entryway, scrabbling at her belt for the keyring with a haste that makes her clumsy.

Morgana’s returning voice makes her fingers fumble, dropping the keys at her feet. “He won’t ever accept you, you know.” Gwen fights to ignore her as she scoops the ring up and rifles for the correct one in the dim light. Morgana keeps going. “You’ll realize the truth, sooner or later. And then you’ll tell him, because you believe in all things honest and righteous, and then he will cast you aside like a blunted blade. That’s what happens to tools that malfunction.”

There are too many keys. Gwen tugs on the lock and pushes at the door, wishing nonsensically for something to give. 

Morgana is talking all the while, low and intimate, barely loud enough to carry in the distance between them, laced with the sweetness that has always been a precursor to her most vicious blows. “Have you ever wondered why your threads never broke when you embroidered? Or why the swords you helped your father forge stayed true for years? Or how you were never seen by the lords and ladies except when you wanted to be seen?” She speaks the same way a knight would soothe a startled horse. “Tapestries that never needed mending. Perfumes that stayed fragrant from dawn until dusk. Knives that never lost their edge.”

Gwen shoves the door with all her might as Morgana finishes with a tenderness that makes her want to clap her hands over her ears, “Magic isn’t all fire and brimstone. It is in the little acts of life. A spark that helps us to live as we will.”

Something in the lock gives. Gwen rips it off and tears the door open, hurtling herself through and slamming it behind her, but that is still not enough to keep Morgana’s final whisper from reaching her ears—

"You have magic, Gwen."

It takes her three tries to slam the bolt on the outer side of the door into its locked position, her shaky fingers refusing to catch on the lock. Her feet take one step back, and then another, as she looks down at the ring of keys clenched in her ashen knuckles.

She never put a key into the lock. 

_I came to the tourney Uther threw for your wedding. I watched you cheer for him. I didn’t understand then why he would want to inaugurate your union together with three days of clashing men. I wish I could maintain that ignorance now, when I know how your husband loves._

_You led me to the nobles’ box, kissed my cheeks and extolled me to all your blue-blooded friends, even though I was and am a weaver’s daughter, until the day I die. That has ever been your gift, graceful and unknowing cruelty_ — _you held my fingers between your own as you cheered for your husband, and told me in between matches meant to honor your marriage how glad you were for my company. And I took it. I took it all. I was raised to be hungry from birth, and I took every scrap you fed me. I think you knew. You played the fawning girl so well for Uther. He was ready to lay the cosmos at your feet. I was, too. Haven’t I? But you knew to never fawn for me. When you spent your summers in the Isles, you spread out your maps all over my rooms and told me your dreams for a united Albion, planned out where to send your troops to all of the kingdoms—you always spoke as if you had armies at your fingertips, even when you were the daughter of a lord without two coins to rub together. Even then, you wanted to be High Queen. To rule with justice. You too were hungry from birth._

_But what do people like you ever know about justice? We are the ones who have to fight in your wars._

_They never saw you. I did. I remember when you were crowned. You knelt before that man as he set his kingdom’s crown on your head, and his hands were gentle around your wrist when he lifted you up. Was it only me who could read the smile on your lips? Was it only me who understood you?_

Nimueh _, you said when I came into your rooms. You were still in your coronation robes, swathed in heavy silk and jewels. It was just one word, just my name, but I could still hear the triumph behind it. Nimueh, I have a crown. Nimueh, I have a kingdom. Nimueh, I have an army, and I will soon start a war, and he will wage it because he loves me, and you will give me the Mother’s blessing because you love me as well._

_I kissed you then. I couldn’t do anything else. I felt sick from it, because kings and queens might not care about the sanctity of oaths, but I still did, and here I was, helping you break vows not even a day old._

I knew it, _you said, tugging me over to your marriage bed._ I knew you loved me. I knew—

_Young Majesty. Young Queen. The whole world has bowed to you. We would fight your wars for you. I pulled you to me and never let go. You kissed like it was meant to be a conquest._

_Maybe you wanted that tourney more than he did._

Imogen is singing. She has a lovely voice, low and rich, and the song she sings is neither happy nor sad. It is about a woman who saves her love from the faerie queen’s ride. Her love twists into a snake and then a bear and then a lion bold, but still she holds on tight all through the night, no matter what kind of beast she must contain, because that is what it means to love. Gwen’s chest aches like the echo of a toothache after a rotten tooth is removed.

“—everything okay? Gwen?”

She has gone from singing to nearly shouting Gwen's name. Gwen starts, wondering how many times Imogen has called for her before then. Her fingers slip, digging her needle into her skin. She jerks back and swears, glaring down at the drop of red beading on her finger. The last time she stuck her fingers while sewing was—

—she doesn’t even remember. It was too long ago. Or maybe it never happened. Her needle never slips.

“I’m alright,” Gwen tells Imogen belatedly. 

Imogen stares at her, brows furrowed. She is patching the outer hems of bed linens today, where they are worn from being tucked and re-tucked underneath the nobles’ mattresses. No one outside of the chambermaids will see the fruits of her labors.

“My lady—” she starts.

“Don’t,” Gwen pleads.

Imogen starts to say something and then stops herself before she does, subsiding into an uneasy quiet. Gwen wipes the little bead of blood on her kerchief. The red seeps into the fabric, a stain blossoming. The only sound in the room is Imogen's needle being steadily pulled through bedding sheets. There is no more singing. “Would you ever run?” Gwen asks, in reference to nothing but her own whirling thoughts. “Leave this castle behind?”

“No,” Imogen answers at once, despite the question's suddenness. “I want to leave, but I can’t let them win.”

Gwen laughs then, the truest she has laughed in days, but it sounds sickly even to her own ears. She doesn't have to ask who _they_ are—she is only flattered that Imogen didn't include her among them. Someone knocks on the door of the seamstresses’ sewing room. Imogen is the one to rise and open it. 

A royal page is at their door, standing at attention. “His Majesty requests the audience of the maid Guinevere,” the man announces stiffly.

She hasn’t had a formal summons in years; they had long moved past that. Arthur hasn’t called her a maid since Merlin came. Gwen neatly rolls up her panels, making sure the threads will not tangle. She has been a servant for all her life. It might be for the best, to be reminded of that.

“Actually, she’s busy,” Imogen says flatly. “Come back later.”

The page bristles. “By His Majesty’s command, the maid Guinevere is summoned to—”

“And I said she’s busy.” Imogen stands squarely in the doorway and crosses her arms. Gwen can tally on one hand the number of people who would do this for a woman they have known for less than half a season. “And this is my room. Tell him she can’t come.”

The page takes a deep breath, red-faced, and Gwen hurries to the door and pulls Imogen back before the man can call the guards on her. "I'm here," she tells the page, steering Imogen behind her. "You may lead the way."

He sniffs at her and then turns away, marching down the corridor. Imogen catches her arm before she can follow. "Gwen," she says. "You can't let them win, either."

Gwen manages a tiny smile before hurrying to catch up with the page. 

The king's chambers are on the opposite side of the castle, as far from the servants' wing as the physical constraints of the building would allow. She knows the criss-crossing halls of the citadel like the lines on her own palms, so it is all the more strange for her, to be led like a visitor through all the main ways, down a long and winding path. The courtly men and women lingering in the high halls turn their heads away as she is escorted through the castle, and the light tittering following her makes her grind her teeth.

Arthur's guards open both doors for them when they arrive, the way they would for an embassy. "The maid Guinevere, reporting to your majesty," the page announces, bowing with a flourish before he backs away, closing the door behind him.

The king is seated at his desk. He looks up at her entrance, expressionless. Merlin stands at his side, tidying up the parchment and pens on his desk. Gwen curtsies deeply. "Sire," she murmurs, showing nothing more than the respect propriety demands.

"Guinevere," Arthur says in the same tone.

There is a muffled _thump_ as a stack of parchment falls from Merlin's hands, sheets scattering all over the floor. He blanches, mouth dropping almost comically wide, and Arthur breaks his cold stare at her to sigh and pinch at the bridge of his nose. 

"Merlin," he says in a strained voice, "clear those up. After that, you are dismissed until supper."

"Yes, sire." Merlin snaps his mouth shut. "Right away, sire."

Gwen watches Merlin scrabble at the papers and stack them into a hasty pile at the corner of Arthur’s desk. He scrambles out of the room without even a goodbye, leaving the two of them to regard each other in near-perfect silence. Gwen fixes her eyes on the floor by her feet. She doesn’t know what will come tumbling out of her when she confronts him.

“Tell me the truth,” Arthur says. It is the command of a king, proud and unrelenting. It makes her want to gnash her teeth. “About Morgana.”

Gwen has a moment of crushing relief before it is overtaken by the heavy, dull pain blooming in her chest. Why couldn’t it have been Lancelot who came back? Why couldn’t it have been as easy as a passionate love? If he had been alive, and if she had still adored him—Gwen fantasizes for a moment about her storybook fate. All her choices gone, thrown to the winds for something as petty as the affairs of the heart, as the betrayal of a man. Exile to a small town. Memories of her affair with a king, which would slowly sweeten with age, become distant and perfect as a story. A long life, and one happy enough.

She thinks of the sorcerers drowned and cut down. Camelot's people dying. All the women who burned in the square. All the things she has borne in the name of loyalty. Imogen's parting words.

Gwen lifts her head and whispers, “I am not leaving.”

Arthur exhales. “You don’t even deny it.”

There is nothing to deny. She hasn’t truly spoken to Morgana for seasons, never touched her in anything save duty. There is everything to deny—a room she cannot abandon, flowers she will replace until she joins the Mother across the Veil, a decade of longing she had not even recognized as longing. “My loyalties will always be to Camelot.” She meets Arthur’s eyes and holds them. “I will never betray this kingdom as long as I live, I swear that by my blood and yours. Believe me, Arthur.”

He doesn't respond to her oath. "We are at war. Against her. Tell me it's enchantment, Gwen. Or a curse. Or a spell—" 

They are both pleading, but to no avail. "I still think she's acting cruelly and harming our people." Gwen's hands are fisted at her sides. "I will still fight against her in the name of Camelot. This can't be an enchantment."

"How can I trust you now?" He is the first to look away, going still with the sort of deathly calm that can only mean anger. “I lost my mother to magic, and then my sister to magic. And then my father to magic and my sister’s anger.” When he turns to regard her, his hands quiver with the effort he needed to keep them steady. “And now I've lost you to her as well."

“Is that what you think of me?” Gwen stalks forward and lets loose her voice, and it snaps, loud enough to match Arthur’s anger. She thinks she might be smiling, baring all of her teeth. “As a toy your sister stole?”

Gwen has watched tourneys all her life. She knows how to tell when a man has been wounded. Arthur flinches away from her, hands clenched on the table. “What else would you have me think of you?” he bites out. “Would you prefer to be called a traitor to Camelot?”

“How have I betrayed Camelot?” she demands. “How have I acted against her people, or her justice?”

“By consorting with the sorceress.” 

Hurt bleeds easily into anger, and anger into contempt, and all of those now coat his words and drip down, cloying. “Would it have been easier?” she asks aloud. “If it had really been Lancelot I came to that night when you were watching me?”

“I wasn’t watching you—”

“You were.” Gwen’s words are now the ones being twisted by an angry snarl. “You followed me back to my rooms when you saw me leaving with Lance. You didn’t trust me around him—that much was clear.”

Arthur’s silence is answer enough. “What are you going to do now, my lord?” Gwen spits the title the way she would a curse. “Imprison me? Exile me?” She breaks off, leaning in close enough for him to feel the plosives of her syllables before she hisses, “Burn me?” 

She has the faint, bitter pleasure of seeing Arthur recoil in instinctual horror. She wonders if he would burn her if he knew the truth of it—and if he did, how long it would take him to regret it. 

“Is that what you think of me?” 

His question is small, reeling. Her triumph fades as quickly as it had flared in her mind, fleeting as the trail of a falling star, and leaves her tired and empty.

"No," she says. "At least—I don't think so."

They stare at each other across the small space between them, which now feels no less vast than the expanse of the ocean.

Arthur sinks into his chair, his head hanging low between his shoulders. He scrubs his hands through his hair and over his eyes, and his fingers come away wet. "I thought I could trust you," he says. "I thought—Gwen, I thought we trusted each other."

"I did, too." Gwen lowers herself into the chair across from him. "And I hope we will again."

Arthur mutely shakes his head, still wiping at his tears with his palms, and Gwen can only watch. “You are a dear friend to me,” she tells him."You always will be."

"Then why wasn't I enough?" 

The question sounds as though it was pulled from him against his will. The proud prince, the people's king, beloved by all and sundry. Never once has it occurred to her that he might fear the same thing she did when she was young and hungry for the world. Gwen slumps, covering her face with her hands. "I never said you weren't."

"But you—still love her more."

Gwen sighs. "I love you, Arthur of Camelot," she says with a brittle smile. This is the first time she has ever told him such. "I think you proud and horribly, horribly honorable, and I believe you will become a king to put your father to shame, should only you outrun his ghost. If that is not love, then what is?" His eyes are wide and watery, and she glances down at the table, digging her nails into the wooden grain of its surface. It will be strange, to re-learn how to keep from touching him. She offers, "I'm sorry."

Arthur laughs, a pained sound. "Please don't lie to me, Gwen." He brushes their hands together for a moment, and it is awkward and brief, a jostling of their fingers, but it lessens the hollow feeling inside of her nonetheless. "You never have. Don't start now."

Gwen nods, even though that is far beyond the bounds of what she can promise. "Okay," she manages. "I'll try."

There are maps of their kingdom all over his desk. Gwen hopes there will be no divisions among their plains and valleys. Camelot is her home, the place where she grew and ran. She has as much right to call it her own as he does.

“The court won’t know about this,” Arthur says. Her head snaps up, but he doesn’t pause long enough for her to thank him. “You—if we were to speak in terms of deserving, you deserve far more than that. All I ask is that you—” he falters, picking at the edge of a map until he finds the capacity to continue. “Just tell me this one thing, Gwen." 

Arthur takes a shallow breath before asking, "Why? Why her?" 

Gwen struggles to find an answer to his question. Morgana makes her feel none of the things she associates with infatuation. She has been in love before. She was in love when she kissed Arthur after a tourney match, and in love when she helped Lancelot put on his armor. She was in love with Marianne the apothecary’s daughter when she was sixteen and still discovering how the configurations of her hands could hold another’s heart, and has loved others since then. Each time, she had felt what she thought she should feel: warm, safe, adored, like she had found in them a harbor against the world. 

There is no safety in Morgana's arms. Morgana makes her angry, and afraid beyond that, because Gwen thinks of Morgana with her unrelenting, cruel righteousness and feels something stirring in the space beneath her ribs, an echo of the fury she has buried since she came of age. Morgana makes her feel fifteen again—incandescently angry at the king and his followers and his son and the castle that thought it could rule her; uncomfortably, dangerously angry.

She thinks of Morgana, and her tongue breaks, and her skin feels too tight and too small to contain her. 

“I don’t know,” she says out loud. “She—I—I don’t know.”

Arthur nods once, as if he understood her answer. "Okay," he echoes. "And—for what it's worth—" he looks stricken, but still raises his chin high and proud, the way he does in battle, and declares, "—I miss her too." 

His voice breaks at the very end. He doesn't say anything more. They sit in silence until Arthur tells her to leave him.


	4. Bled Me, Burned Me

I want a child _, you told me one night. Uther was away from Camelot. It used to be that he was away for seasons on end, the same each year, besieging towns no one had cared about before—Ismere and Helva and Astolat and Sigelai. All Camelot heard of him was rumors of his affairs on the road with all his allies’ wives, but you never cared if he was unfaithful. He was subduing a kingdom for you, and you set tokens on your maps and planned routes for the supply caravans and troops, and dreamt of a day you would be queen of all of Albion. When the evenings came, I crawled into your bed like a vine towards the gleam of day, so used to darkness that the sunshine dazed me._

_He is in court more and more now, and still you have not conceived._

Life magic is dangerous, _I told you, holding you close as I trembled. I knew what you were about to ask._ There will be a price.

We’ve tried. So many times. I need an heir. _You turn to me, your eyes starry in the ink of night._ I will pay whatever price you ask of me. No queen is a true queen without children to follow her.

_My heart broke, because you believed it. Children should be loved. I grew up in a village where everyone saved their marks so there would be enough to give every babe money enough for blessings on Midsummer. But you nobility use your children as pawns in your game of kings. The halls of the Isles are filled with girls who are the abandoned wards of disfavored lords or the bastard daughters of ambitious high ladies. Lyssa, who was brought to us as a babe by a father who wanted nothing to do with a daughter. Helen, who was exiled from her home when she refused a marriage. Morgause, Vivienne’s daughter, who was snuck out from your own Camelot in the dead of the night. The Lady Gorlois had stayed with you for half of every year during the first five years of your reign, while her husband waged war at Uther’s side. She found a lord of Camelot to warm her cold bed as you have found me. You know who Morgause is—you braided her hair and told her stories of the ocean. But then she grew to look too much like her mother, and you and Vivienne sent her off to the Isles in the name of reputation. I know well how your people love their children._

_They say Vivienne hung herself just last year when she bore another daughter, but I know better. Vivienne has learned the game of your court too well, but she was a priestess first, above all. That little girl will grow up under her father's rule, never knowing that he is the reason why she will never see her mother. If Uther ever found out about us—he and the Lord Gorlois are alike in temperament. Lords can be faithless but still in love. High ladies do not have that luxury._

_That is also why you want a child now—legitimacy, proof of love and piety, power in your king’s regard as well as power over the land. I hate it._

_And yet I cannot blame you for it. In the no-name town where I spent my younger years, there were also women who lived until old age without children, without husbands and wives, who still owned their farms and worked their land and grew old, their lives full and happy. Your life has never let you see this. You are the daughter of kings and a kingmaker in your own right. You have watched the movements of armies since you were tall enough to reach the tops of tables. You write speeches that can stir any legion. If you were not born a queen, then who was? What would a swaddled babe give you that your life could not?_

Can you do that for me, Nimueh? _you asked._ Can you give me a child? Make me a queen?

_I love you, Ygraine. That is what I said then, too, despair sinking through me like water as the future came into view. You took that as an affirmation._

“Another,” Gwen mutters, thrusting her cup at her brother.

Elyan’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline, but he fills her goblet to the brim with strong wine nevertheless, topping up his own afterwards. Gwen drains her cup, letting the sweet-acrid burn of the wine blaze down the back of her throat, warming her chest like a hearth fire. It reminds her of the summers she spent when she was sixteen and seventeen, sneaking apple liqueur and undiluted honey mead from the kitchens to drink with Morgana. They climbed to the top of the north tower and drank until they were giggly, the sweetness clinging to their tongues and teeth, and Morgana would turn to her with red-flushed cheeks and tell her how glad she was to have a friend in her. 

Gwen knocks her near-empty goblet to the side with a frustrated groan, spilling the dark dregs over her table. Morgana is inescapable even now, in the sanctity of her thoughts.

“I haven’t seen you like this since—Marianne,” Elyan observes, taking a more measured sip from his cup. He reaches across her and sets her goblet upright again, and she bats it down again, giggling at his miffed frown. “Or maybe even Johannes.”

“Father would’ve put me on bellows duty for a month if he saw me get this drunk after Johannes.” Gwen turns her goblet upside-down and frowns at it. Why is it empty?

“You’ve also developed more of a talent for holding your drink since then.” Elyan deftly moves the pitcher away when she swipes at it. They are huddled together on her bed, elbows knocking together as they hunch over her rickety table, passing the wine back and forth. “Gwen, what happened? I thought everything was going well between you and Arthur.”

“It wasn’t.” She pouts. “Or—it was. I don’t know.”

Elyan laughs softly. “It was until it wasn’t, I take it?”

“It was, until Morgana had to come back and ruin everything.” Gwen groans, pounding her head on the table. “But—what did she even ruin, Elyan? She didn’t even ruin anything!”

Elyan is suddenly very quiet. “Morgana?” he echoes. “She was here?”

“You know she’s here! Didn’t they brief you? Morgana reanimated Lance’s dead body and puppeted him around, trying to get to Arthur, and then I found out about it and stabbed him, but now he can’t actually die, because he isn’t actually alive, so they’re just keeping him in the dungeons until someone convinces her to release her hold on—”

“I know about that,” Elyan cuts her off before she can describe the whole gory tableau. “But—you can’t talk to Morgana through Lancelot’s body. We’ve all tried. Gaius said it would be incredibly difficult and dangerous for her to communicate with us like that.”

“No. That can’t be. Why?” Gwen asks. She swallows hard. Morgana shouldn’t be risking herself just—to talk to Gwen. “Just because _Gaius_ said so? He doesn't have a clue what Morgana can do, he never has—”

“She talked to you, Gwen? Talk-talked to you, face to face?”

“It wasn’t even her face!” Gwen throws herself back onto her pallet, burying her face in her blanket. “It was Lance’s face. I couldn’t even see her, Elyan. And her laugh—” she shudders, “—it sounded so wrong—”

Elyan mouths a succinct _oh_ , his eyes as wide as spindle whorls. He cycles through many expressions, most of which she doesn’t want to interpret at the moment. “Everyone thinks it was Lancelot's return that made everything go to horseshit,” he says at last. He looks down at the wine left remaining and, with a fatalistic shrug, starts drinking straight from the pitcher.

Gwen shakes her head mournfully, and Elyan sets the pitcher aside and wraps his arms around her, pulling her into a hug and ruffling her hair the way he’s been doing since he outgrew her his eighth summer. She tries to swat his hand away and misses. “It makes sense now,” he mutters. “Why you stay in these rooms and refuse to move. I thought—a long time ago, I thought it would be her, you know? You were so close with her, and I thought, my sister was going to be a lady in the big castle one day, arm in arm with another lady.”

Gwen starts crying in earnest at that, sniffling into her brother’s overtunic as she is overwhelmed with joy and sadness alike—joy at her brother’s easy acceptance of her lingering affection for an enemy of Camelot, grief at the unfulfilled vision of a golden age Elyan described. She wants to be the woman Elyan once thought she would be, tall and proud and walking arm in arm with her lady love. She wants it so badly that she can barely breathe. 

“You and the Pendragons, eh?” 

His teasing is gentle, his hands rubbing her back even gentler, and she cries even more. She can’t let him know the greater truth. He has been her anchor for all her life, and she cannot be the reason he is dragged to the river and left to drown. The door to her little room opens, and Gwen scrambles to wipe her tears, stifling her sobs in the back of her throat. She's normally more than good at concealing her tears, but the wine makes it exponentially harder.

"I heard we were drinking," the intruder announces.

"—Merlin," she hiccups, staring up at his concerned face. What was he doing here? Didn't Arthur need his help? She remembers the brokenness of Arthur's words when he asked her why he wasn't enough, and that makes her queasy all over again. 

"Gods above, Gwen." She is a moment's notice away from shouting at him for being so easy to read, because he has to survive, she can't lose another friend, no matter how much she wants to peel the pity off of his features. "I see you've started without me."

"Shouldn't you be with Arthur? Helping him?" She wipes the tears dribbling from her chin. "I knew you'd be there for him when I left, and he—he shouldn't be alone right now—"

Merlin blinks rapidly before declaring, "Hells no."

He plops himself down on the floor in front of them and fills all their glasses with the mead he had brought from the kitchens. It is so fruit-sweet that even she can taste it through her tears and stuffy nose. She is halfway through the cup when she hears Merlin say, "You shouldn't be alone, either."

She wakes up the next morning feeling like her head had been hammered to a pulp on her father's old anvil. The inside of her mouth tastes foul, and her entire spine cracks when she levers herself off the floor. She remembers telling Elyan and Merlin last night that one of them could have the bed, but Elyan said that he would have to put aside his sword for violating the knights' code if he let his heartbroken sister sleep on the floor, and Merlin said that he wouldn't be able to sleep if he takes her bed, and Gwen didn't want to be the only one with a bed while Merlin and Elyan slept on the floor outside, so they all eventually collapsed in a pile on the hard wooden floorboards of Morgana's antechamber well past the midnight bell.

"Seven—bleeding— _hells_ —" Elyan groans muzzily, opening his eyes and cringing away from the crisp morning light streaming in through the windows. "Remind me to never, ever drink with the two of you again; the knights might as well be children drinking cider—" He flops back down onto the ground and squints against the sunshine. The white-draped furniture towers over the three of them, and Elyan squints at the figures in confusion before startling. "Brigit's rotten teeth, Gwen, it's like a graveyard in here."

It's too early for this. Her head hurts too much, and her thoughts are too clear for her to answer her brother's implicit questions. She picks herself off the ground, her knees creaking, and tries to wipe the gunk from her eyes. Beside Elyan, Merlin stirs as he begins to rouse. "I'll get us some water," she says, and she leaves before Elyan can ask her anything else.

Gossip is the only thing in a castle to travel faster than hay fever in the summer. Gwen pulls her hair into a hasty knot and brushes out the creases in her skirts as she hurries down the stairways, bracing for what the kitchen staff already know. The room is already bustling when she slips in through one of the side-doors. She heads for the water urns, filled by the littlest of the cook's apprentices as their first duties for the morning. The water goes hot and stale fast, but it would do for now.

"You look like someone's dragged you in from the pigsty, my lady."

Gwen loses her balance when she turns around, catching herself on the wall before she topples entirely. Her headache triples from the suddenness of her movements. "Brigit's bones, Hilda, you scared me," she groans, clutching at her head with her hands.

"I take it you had a late night."

Gwen manages a small nod. "Very, very late."

Ever since Gwen can remember, she has known Hilda, the castle's head cook, stocky and pale in her kingdom of salt and smoke. Her hands are weathered by decades of lye soap and washing, and she is endowed with a robust voice—which she at least has the courtesy to lower now. 

"Well, wine does tend to help with the flow of conversation," Hilda is saying. She goes over to the urns and draws a pitcher for Gwen herself. "Have you and his majesty made up?"

Gwen accepts the pitcher with a nod and a weak smile. "Wine helps with a multitude of things, my lady."

"I'm glad to hear it." Hilda _tsks_ as she turns away. "Some of the girls were saying that you'd been exiled for cheating on the king, and I stopped those rumors right quick." 

Hilda was the one who gave Gwen little tarts when she was a girl and let her hide in the pantries whenever she played knights and robbers with her brother and his friends. But the head cook is the backbone of every castle, and the most influential participant in the rumor mill. Gwen can't tell her the truth just yet, no matter how tired lying makes her. "Thank you, Hilda," is all she says aloud.

Hilda starts to prepare a tray for her as well—bread and pears and a piece of cheese from the center of the wheel and thick slices of venison. Gwen waves her hand, refusing the tray. “Arthur’s probably not even awake yet. Merlin’ll bring him his food later in the morning.”

“Oh, I am aware.” Hilda clicks her tongue. “He forgets to take his own meals half the time, but he’s never late for the king’s food. His majesty is lucky to have the two of you, Gwen, keeping his head on his shoulders and his feet planted in the ground. Not a lot of kings can have both.” She pushes the food into Gwen’s free hand, and Gwen takes it without any more fuss. “He’s better with you, I can see it. He was such a proud, lonely little boy. The Lady Morgana was his first friend, and—well, we can’t call her that anymore, can we?” 

Hilda breaks off abruptly as something falls with a clatter on the other side of the kitchen. She shouts at the sauciers to hurry with the scraps, bustling off to solve whatever small crisis has arisen in the kitchens since she last left her apprentices, and Gwen is left with ringing ears, blinking down at the food and drink in her hands. She can’t be sick here. She has to hang on until she gets back to her rooms, so she can put the food down first.

The morning is growing old by the time Merlin leaves for Arthur’s chambers, muttering something about council and training and hunting down Arthur’s second-best cloak. Elyan has to start drills with the other knights not soon afterwards, and he hurries back to his own rooms to don his mail after extracting a promise from Gwen that she will eat something from the tray. Gwen agrees reluctantly. Once the taste of sick subsides in her throat, she will eat. This is why she doesn’t like to overindulge, more than even the headache and the wooliness in her skull. She abhors being so betrayed by her own body.

Another page comes to summon her when the council is about to end. He addresses her as _lady_ again and does not rush her. When the guards open the doors to the council chamber, Arthur is there waiting for her, still seated at the head of his table. Merlin is tidying up the water cups in front of the empty seats. 

Lord Agravaine glares at her from where he sits at Arthur's side, cutting short his own discussion of trade agreements with north and east Anglia. “I thought you had realized the folly of your personal choices, Arthur,” he says to the king. He doesn’t so much as acknowledge her.

“My personal choices are not the issue at question here, uncle.” Arthur does not look up from the treaty document in his hands. “Guinevere is here for the valuable information she can provide about the sorceress’ maneuvers, and I would prefer to speak to her in private. You are dismissed.”

Agravaine’s face goes red. “Here? In the council chambers, Arthur? You are a king, you must learn to rein in your appetites—”

Gwen’s patience for propriety has been thinning of late, but Arthur speaks before she can resort to drastic measures. She supposes she should be grateful—running a lord through is undoubtedly an executable offence. Arthur’s voice carries through the room, cold and dispassionate, kingly and entirely unlike him. "Lord Agravaine, your king is asking you to leave."

The man snaps to attention. “Yes, sire. My apologies, sire. But—I only worry about you, Arthur. Keep what I say in mind.” He hastens from the room, and the grudging bow he manages in her direction makes her feel even more belittled.

Arthur slumps back into his chair, his shoulders bowing from an unseen weight. “You too, Merlin,” he says, more gently. Merlin looks at Arthur, then at Gwen, and Gwen musters a small smile at him. He slips out the servants’ entrance with one last worried glance over his shoulder.

The silence between the two of them re-echoes, too loud in the grandeur of the space. Arthur clasps his hands on the table, clearing his throat. “I apologize,” he announces. “For my uncle’s conduct.” His voice is small and stilted compared to the size of the room.

“Thank you,” Gwen tells him. “I know you needn’t. Anymore.”

"No. I still do."

He can’t seem to meet her eyes, and she doesn’t want to meet his. It had been easier to talk to him yesterday—the words had come pouring like water in a downpour, and now it is like stitching a wound up and knowing it will hurt for months. There is nothing left to do. Blood cannot be called back once it has hit the ground. 

“You asked to see me?” Gwen offers when the quiet has stretched on for so long that she fears it might become unbreakable.

Arthur ducks his head, seeming glad to have a question to answer. "Aye. It’s about Lancelot. Or—his body, rather.” The king trails off before he clears his throat and starts again. “The corpse heals by some arcane magic. It cannot be killed. We need the sorceress to release the body. The dead deserve a proper burial, and her presence in this castle is a risk to the people here.”

The body, the sorceress, the king—Gwen despises these abstractions, for all that she knows them to be necessary. Gaius had said that forcing Morgana to talk with them directly through Lancelot’s body would make her vulnerable and magically weakened. Killing Morgana would end all of her enchantments. Lancelot would die again. Morgana—

—Morgana would be gone.

“You want me to talk to her—as a distraction,” Gwen realizes. “While you and your men root her out.”

“What?” Arthur flinches back. “Hells, Gwen, no, I want you to convince her to let Lancelot’s body go. I didn’t—I didn’t even—” He stares at her, lips parted in shock, and asks again, “Is that what you think of me?”

“I don’t know, Arthur.” It comes out louder than she intended, and more pained. “We’re at war. That’s what you told me.”

He doesn’t quite meet her gaze, but he is looking in her direction, fixed on a point just over her shoulder, and she counts that for something. “But we still fight our wars with honor.” His eyes flick to hers. “And I wouldn’t do that to you. No matter what—we are.”

Gwen lets out an unsteady sigh, feeling something in the pit of her stomach loosen. Her allegiance is first and foremost to Camelot, her kingdom. She thinks she knows what she would have said, had that been his request, but she doesn’t know what she would have done afterwards.

The skin beneath Arthur’s eyes is bruised as her own. “I understand that you might not be successful, but I ask for the sake of this kingdom that you only try.”

Gwen bows jerkily. “I’ll try,” she says. Her words are hoarse.

Arthur nods, sealing their promise. He returns to his treaty records but then turns back. “One last thing. I know—our closeness is no longer as it was.” He swallows nervously, throat clicking. “But if this works, stand with me. At his burial. The court—would do well to see us in concordance.”

A state funeral for Lancelot, with Gwen included among the nobility, would allay any fears of moles and betrayal. Arthur is learning. Gwen might be proud of him in time, but now she only feels a heavy, acrid anger in her throat at the thought of being paraded before the court as a display of loyalty, when it will be by her hand that Lancelot was put into the ground again. She thought herself lucky because she didn’t have to watch him die the first time. Her luck, it appears, has run out. 

“I assent, sire.” Gwen turns and leaves from the council chamber before either of them can say anything more.

_Uther was thrilled when you told him you were expecting. Your brothers rejoiced and extolled you. They all knew what you had to barter. I almost spit on them all, then and there, but then you smiled at me, and I thought I knew then what sunlight tasted like._

_I was born hungry. I was ever a stunted vine. I always followed you, my sun._

Two of Arthur’s guards accompany her down to the dungeons, their mail clinking with their every step. Gwen watches as the men direct the dungeon guard to open the door for her. He doesn’t give her the keys this time, instead locking the door behind her. She wouldn’t be able to get out on her own. She wonders, idly, without any force, if they will let her out.

“My lady,” Lancelot’s body hails her. His eyes are gleaming pale in the dim light. There is black blood on his neck, crusted around still-healing scars which criss-cross like wagon tracks on a muddy road. Gwen wants to be sick again. “Do you see what they've done to me?”

"You're dead." Gwen says it loud to remind herself as much as him. 

“I live for you.” He gasps—too breathy for pain, too drawn for pleasure. It makes her skin crawl. “Do you know what they’ve done to me? They want to kill me. They cut me open, bled me, burned me—”

Yes. They did. And they will, a thousand times over. “Talk to me,” Gwen commands. “You want this kingdom’s throne. Surely you have the courage to use your own voice.”

Lancelot’s gaze glitters as Morgana’s laugh pours from his throat. “Look who’s still here.” She sounds amused. “I thought for sure you would’ve been banished by now. The Southron border towns are quite nice at this time of year.”

Gwen steels herself and takes another step forward. “Maybe you underestimated Arthur, my lady.”

Morgana laughs again. “Don’t be crass and use his name now, Gwen; this isn’t a conversation about him.” She fixes gold-green eyes on Gwen, and they shine in the dimness like the leaves in the springtime. “I find it more likely that I underestimated you.”

Gwen’s chest hurts like an open wound, but she too can pretend at arch disaffection. “What are you doing, Morgana?” she asks, as casually as she did when she used to ask her lady what she wanted for her morning meal. She is proud that the tremor in her words is barely audible. “Endangering yourself and your whole war to, what—talk to me?” She steps forward until she is close enough to touch the cell bars. “Did you want to see me that badly?”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Morgana sneers. “I wanted to see you cast out before you could take what is mine.”

Her dismissal is shakier, her viciousness less pointed than it should have been. She was never a good liar. Gwen takes one step closer, and then another. “There are easier ways to do that, and you took the body of a man I loved to drive me from another. And now you’ve failed, and you’re still here. It does make me wonder.”

“We share that, then.” Morgana bares Lancelot’s teeth. “Two failed women, the pair of us. But I am still not letting him go.”

“Count your victories while you can, Morgana.” Gwen tilts her head, considering. “What would you have me do, for you to release him?”

Morgana doesn't say anything for a long while. "Something that would hurt you," she finally decides. 

Morgana’s bluntness would have shocked her once, but Gwen understands what happens to allegiances in war. The complex manifestations of loyalty and friendship and affection are reduced to a brutal dichotomy. Helping friends, harming enemies—these are the ethics of conflict. Anything can be a sword to wound.

"And how do you expect to hurt me more than you already have?" Gwen asks with an unhappy smile of her own.

Morgana's mouth curls. “Beg,” she spits. The single syllable echoes through the empty cells. “Beg for me to release him.”

Gwen knows Morgana, and Morgana knows her. Gwen was ten summers old when she joined the royal household, thirteen when she was named a chambermaid. Fifteen when she spent a night in the dungeons for railing at the crown prince, sixteen when she came of age side-by-side with her lady. Twenty-three when the king killed her father on false accusations of witchcraft. She has learned to bow and speak as a servant should, to sheathe the knife of her anger. She had to. She stood beside Morgana and served her wine for all the years of her youth, bore the snide and dismissive comments from every nobleman who found her wanting and lowly. She learned to lower her eyes. But she never begged—bent her knee and supplicated before lords who had the temerity to pretend to be gods. She has never viewed another man or woman as her better, no matter how lofty their ranks and heavy their coffers.

She has never begged, and she never will.

Gwen meets Morgana’s gaze. She can feel it building, another rainstorm, another bloody duel. “Please, Morgana,” she breathes.

Surprise flashes across Morgana’s face for a moment before she grins in triumph. Gwen licks her dry lips, letting her eyes fall shut for a brief moment before opening them again. There is no fondness in her heart for games of chance, but she grew up around the knights. She has learned how to gamble—and so she now chooses her words like they are dice in a cup, a blade to be hefted or silk to be spun. “You said you loved me. Let him go, my lady. Save yourself. Do it if you love me.” 

“What in the hells are you doing, Gwen?” Morgana recoils like she has been burned. “I told you to beg—”

“And I am.” Gwen presses her advantage, lowering her voice until it is a soft and touchable thing. "Why did you come? Was it because you didn't want to see me marry the king? Or was it because you couldn't bear to see a man marry me?"

"Don't you dare tell me what I want." Morgana suddenly sounds furious, and frightened beyond that. 

"Why would I need to, when you've already gotten what you want?" Gwen smiles then. "You've won. You've won _me_ , my lady. So do it if you have ever loved me. Let him go.”

All of Morgana’s bitter victory has faded into dust. She looks stricken, terrified. Gwen pushes one hand through the bars of the cell, and Morgana stumbles away as though Gwen’s fingers were a bonfire too quickly spreading, like they would scorch her if she touched them. Gwen knows that for all her cruelty and manipulations, Morgana has always been honest, dismayingly so, even to her own detriment. Is it worse or better to know that she is not alone in the terror of her desire?

Worse. Far, far worse.

“Morgana,” Gwen whispers, straining to touch her. “Please, Morgana. If you’ve ever loved me—”

For a moment, everything is still—and then Lancelot’s body collapses to the ground, and Gwen flinches back, snatching her hand away. She stares down at his form, unable to comprehend it. It is nothing more than a heap on the dusty stone, as if the man were a marionette and all of his strings had been cut in one fell stroke of the knife. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t feign breathing. His face is pallid and blank, his limbs slack and strange. The air smells of rot. He’s dead. Dead.

There is a dead body in front of her. 

She claps her hand over her mouth and keels over from the scream she forces down inside. Behind her, a door opens. Someone rushes to catch her before she hits the ground; more come, shadowy figures in the corners of her vision, to gape with fear and hope conjoined at the thing that used to be a man. “It’s done,” Gwen gasps. “It’s done, it’s done, _it’s done_ —”

Somewhere between then and now, she has started shrieking. The person holding her shushes her, rocking her back and forth in his arms, and he mutters frantically, “I’m sorry, Gwen, I’m sorry—”

Elyan enters the dungeon, with Merlin on his heels. She reaches for them, tears blurring her vision, and Elyan takes her into his arms and murmurs soothing noises, shielding her from the person who had first caught her as he guides her out of the darkness. “—up to her room,” she hears him say to Merlin. He presses her kerchief into her hands, and she wipes furiously at the wetness on her cheeks. before they enter the main corridor. “I have to get back to the king, but you should stay with her—”

With the languid, syrupy slowness she remembers from dreams, Gwen glances at the dungeons one last time, and all she sees is Arthur’s pale and guilty face. He looks so much like his sister. 

She lets Elyan and Merlin lead her into the corridor, and their words blur and wash over her, an eddying river that carries everything far away.

The only thing she can think of when she dons her cloak is how hot the black fabric will be under the sun. She surveys her reflection in her washbasin, arranging her hair with dispassionate fingers. She can't afford to look frazzled in front of the court. Nothing can be done about the shadows under her eyes. She hasn't had the time to mix her usual face balm, and the blaunchet and root powder favored by the other women in the castle show up on her skin like ash.

Behind her, Merlin fidgets aimlessly. He too is dressed in mourning finery, wearing a dark jacket over his best tunic, and his eyes are puffy and tired. Gwen would bet a year's wages that none of them have slept a wink in the past two days. The night after she left from the dungeons, she dreamt of a funeral, Lancelot being burned, a woman cutting Arthur down with a green-tinted knife to punish him for the sins of his father, the king crumbling and dying in front of her as she watched helplessly and the corpse burned on and on. She woke up screaming after no more than a bell's rest and did not sleep again.

“You shouldn’t have to do this.” Merlin says when she turns around. “Arthur shouldn’t have asked you to kill Lance. And he shouldn’t have asked you to stand with him now.”

Gwen only shrugs. "It was necessary. I did what I had to." She claps Merlin on the shoulder lightly and adds, "I always will."

Merlin steps forward and hugs her, and she relaxes for a moment, resting her head against his shoulder as he rocks her back and forth. He smells like herb-grindings, yarrow and wormwood, ingredients for sleeping tinctures. They make their way to the courtyard together, taking their places behind Arthur, who is flanked by his knights. Normally, they as servants would be standing with the lower town or watching from the walls and towers, but the whole court knows that they had been close to Lancelot, and are close to their mourning king. Merlin was the one who brought Lancelot to the citadel and encouraged him to become a knight. Gwen—loved him once. And is loyal now. The people of Camelot look on Gwen as the woman at Arthur’s side, who helps him bear the weight of his kingdom with the love in her heart. The king’s harbor in his grief.

Little do they know that she is only here by necessity.

Lancelot is arrayed on a pyre in full finery, shrouded in red silk that would have taken the castle's weavers months to spin and dye. His hands are clasped around his sword, and his limbs are still. The sun beams down as hot as forge-fire. Arthur is the one to speak the prayers over Lancelot’s body, asking the Goddess in all her forms to bear their hero into the land of the blessed so he can partake in life and glory everlasting. When he finishes, they all bow their heads, baring their necks to the searing eye above.

The king lights the pyre. It is the highest honor a knight can have in death. The dry wood blazes at the touch of the torch, flames spreading like rumor. There are sweet herbs and fragrant resin scattered among the kindling to mask the smell of rot. Gwen’s eyes begin to prickle, from the heat, the smoke, or something else, she does not know. The others who burnt in the square—they only had unmarked graves.

Footsteps sound behind her, barely louder than the crackle of the flames.

Gwen starts, but she is the only one to do so. Grief is itself a spell, mourning a ritual to bring them all together in a near-rapture. The courtyard is quieter than it has ever been. Gwen tries to calm her breathing. The steps are growing louder now, insistent scratching against the stone. The smell of hot blood and ash is thick in her nose in spite of all the fragrances that try to mask it, and there are tears slipping down Arthur’s cheeks, lit like pearls by the fire. He is lost in his thoughts. They all are, save her. 

The flick of a knife. The spray of blood. 

Gwen knows what is about to happen. She has been here. There will be time for her to lose herself to fear, but that time is not now. She steps back and sweeps her leg out, catching Arthur’s would-be killer on the side of her ankle. The woman tumbles to the ground with a grunt, and Gwen lunges for her and pushes her down. She thrashes, slashing at Gwen with her knife. The blade stings where it grazes her skin, but Gwen ignores it, bearing down. She traps the other woman’s arm behind her and forces her wrist up, resting all her weight on her twisted forearm until she grunts in pain and lets go of her knife. It clatters to the stone, loud as the noonday bell, and she stops struggling, panting hard.

The spell around them breaks like the dawn. Arthur’s guards lunge into action, pulling Gwen to her feet and swarming over the other woman. Gwen sways in the grip of the knight who caught her. The air is too hot, and her breathing is too loud for all that she feels light-headed, as though her breaths aren’t getting into her lungs. She looks down at the shallow cuts on her arm in a daze. The blood is seeping out slow and sluggish, tinged with a metallic green.

She had forgotten about the poison.

“Gwen,” someone is calling. “Gwen— _Gwen_ —gods above, Gwen, can you hear me?”

She realizes she has sunk to the ground and blinks up at Arthur. He is frantic, still crying, pulling at her shoulders, but she cannot feel him. Her eyes fall to the woman on the platform. The knights have forced her to her knees. Her knife is on the ground next to her limp hand, a common blade, meant to cut apples and trim loose threads. Well-worn. It was never supposed to see blood. She is so young—a girl, no more than fifteen summers old, grief-stricken and hungry, holding her chin high. Gwen had been fifteen once. She knows. Arthur is watching her, shouting frantically. She cannot understand him. They are in front of the whole court, and the whole town, under the sky and Brigit’s all-seeing eyes. Blood is starting to seep down her forearm, warmth flowing from her with her every breath. She forces words past the blurring veil of her thoughts, and they come hoarse and ragged and ringing. 

“Sire, I ask of you. Do not kill her.”

The dark takes her then, and she has no choice but to go.


	5. A Good Woman

When she awakens, the eye of the sun is gone, and the air smells of pungent herbs. She squints at the ceiling above her. The scent and space are familiar; she has been here before, picking up tinctures and draughts. Gaius' chambers. She is in the healer's rooms. 

She's alive, then. She can be glad for that.

The sounds of her stirring bring a familiar face into view. Arthur looks like he hasn't slept in a sennight. He is still in ceremonial clothes, his crown askew in his hair. Gwen faintly remembers that she is still angry at him, but she cannot quite bring herself to care. "You should change out of the robes," she says. Her voice is as thin as a fly's wings. "They'll crinkle." 

“Never do that again.” Arthur’s words sound as though they have been torn from him.

Gwen reaches up. It is a titanic strain, to cross the meager two or three handbreadths between them, but she eventually succeeds. Her fingers pause before patting his cheek, and she lets them fall without touching him. "I'm alright," she rasps.

But she shouldn’t be. The potion was a fatal one. Why is she still alive?

"You have Merlin to thank for that," Arthur says, kneeling down so their noses almost touch. "He was the one who healed you." He reaches out, his hand hovering over hers, aimless and frantic. "I thought you were gone. Never, ever do that again. Please, Gwen," he mutters, and Gwen realizes that he is begging.

Pendragons beg as seldom as she does.

"I don't intend on it," she tells him, mustering any humor she can manage, and his red-rimmed eyes water again. 

Merlin appears in the field of her vision, steering Arthur from her bedside with a hand on his shoulder. “You should let her rest,” he says, and Arthur nods and goes, letting himself be shepherded off like a child to bed. Before he slips away, she hears him whisper something that sounds like _I'm sorry_.

“Arthur,” Gwen calls. “What about the girl?”

Arthur stills. “She’s not dead,” he says. He glances back at her. “We’ll talk soon.”

Gwen nods, and Merlin leads him out of the room. She sinks into the pillows and closes her eyes, hissing from the pain of holding herself so stiffly. She doesn’t want for Arthur to see her hurting. It seems too intimate now. “Is Gaius here, Merlin?” she asks, after she hears the sound of the door closing.

“He’s off to the market, but I have several tinctures from him on hand. If your pain becomes too extreme, I can administer them—actually, I’ll administer one right now. If you’re okay with it,” he adds.

Gwen sighs. The exhalation rattles her whole body. “I’ll take it,” she relents.

“This one isn’t too strong. You’ll just feel a little woozy.” 

The room swims into view as she opens her eyes. Merlin helps her into a sitting position, supporting her back and neck with steady hands. The court was full of haughty nobles who thought him clumsy and useless, unfit to be a servant as high-ranking as the king’s chief attendant. They were greater fools than the one they accused him of being. He presses a cup into her hands, guiding her hands as she drinks. The draught is cool and tastes of sour mint and honey. She asks for more water, and he gives her another cup. 

“How did you cure me?” she asks after she lies back down. The pain in her body is ebbing away, and she feels like she is being drawn out by the tide from a distant shore.

“I—brewed a potion.” The lie is loud and earnest. “I didn’t really know what I was doing, I put everything except the washbasin in it, and the Mother smiled down on me, because something in it worked—”

"Merlin," Gwen cuts across him. She sets her hand on his where it rests on the pallet. "Thank you. I know—I know how much I owe you. The poison was mortal. It should have killed me. No draught or ointment would have stopped its spread. And I know this—" she holds up her other hand before he can interrupt her, and he subsides. "I know this because I saw it in a dream. And I am telling you this because I trust you, and I know you might not yet want to tell me how it is that you cured me of incurable poison, but I swear to you, you can trust me. And I would dearly like it if there were fewer lies between us."

He has gone still as stone. Under her palm, his fingers are rigid and clammy. He works his jaw in silence for a long moment before he can speak. "You know," he says weakly. "Gwen—you—"

"I've known since the night you went after the Fomorroh. I was there when you fought Morgana."

“You never said anything.”

“I wanted you to tell me yourself. I hoped you would one day trust me enough.” Gwen gestures at herself. “But then—this.”

Merlin sinks down onto the pallet. His voice cracks when he starts, "You have the sight." It rises to a frantic pitch. “You have magic, Gwen. In the middle of Camelot.”

“And you have magic in the middle of Camelot. Which is why I am telling you about my sight, Merlin.” Gwen squeezes his hand. “I didn't know until—recently. Very recently. Two nights ago was the first time I had a dream that came true. But—I think I've had it my entire life. I've never had a thread break on me when I sew. Never hit my hand with a hammer while working the anvil. Little things like that. I've always thought that it was luck.”

Merlin stares down at her. His eyes are wet, disbelieving and already grieving. "It's luck you'll be beheaded for, if anyone finds out."

“No one will. That should be my line, anyways—what the hells do you think you’re doing, with half the gods-damned horseshit you pull off?” Yelling, even half-yelling, hurts, but Gwen needs to get it out. “Riding off alone to duel Morgana? Using the flame like that in the stables, when anyone could’ve been watching? You can’t afford to be so careless with your own life.”

Merlin doesn’t take offense to her scolding. If anything, he seems tearier than he was before. “You don’t—blame me?” he asks carefully. “You aren’t angry?”

“I’m pissed at how careless you are. Does that count?”

“Gwen,” Merlin chokes out. He sounds like there is something lodged in his lungs. “Gwen, I—”

“It’s alright,” she murmurs. The world is starting to slip away from her. She has run out of vehemence. 

The pain tincture is in full effect, lulling her thoughts to ebb and flow in a pleasant surge of warmth. Her eyes slip shut again. She is just succumbing to a doze when Merlin speaks again. 

“I used to think I was cursed,” he says. His words are distant and soft.

“You’re not.” 

“I was born in the worst winter my mother ever knew. No one outside of her would touch me when I was a baby because of how my skin burned. Whenever anything bad happened in the town—crop blight, or sheep dying, or flooded fields—they would blame me.” Merlin laughs suddenly, but there is no humor in the sound. “Hunith’s bastard son. Born in the dead of the year.”

“You aren’t cursed,” Gwen repeats. “You healed me. You changed the future I saw—Merlin, that’s not a curse. That’s a miracle.” She opens her eyes again, slowly, and the room stays vague around her. She should be sleeping soon, but there is one last question nagging at her. “Why the hells did you come to Camelot?”

He laughs again, that awful, unhappy sound, and she wants to hold him, but the effort of lifting her arms is too great. “Because Gaius was the only one my mother knew who could train me. And Ealdor was going to kill me, one way or another, if I stayed too much longer. And—destiny.”

 _Destiny_ —the word that kings and queens used, along with justice and right, to conquer kingdoms. Gwen has never put much stock in destiny, but Merlin said the word like it was a prayer, or the very curse he had feared. He tells her about the prophecy of the dragon, about an age of magic that will be heralded by blood and ash and dark dawns, and how they will all grow cold with their bloodstained hands, and how Arthur is fated to die before he can lay claim to the glory the gods owed to him, brought low by his sister’s hate and his father’s war. And Gwen listens as Merlin recounts Arthur’s fate with longing and awe and grief, and when Merlin says, _that’s why I stay in Camelot—so he can be our king,_ Gwen hears something else entirely. How much has he done, chipping away at his spirit without hope of thanks or recompense? How much has he done in the name of his devotion?

“How much?” she asks aloud.

"I’ve stopped counting." He is hunched over, pressing his hands to his mouth to keep the sounds inside, and Gwen thinks that he is crying. "The sword you gave me, I nearly killed myself burnishing it in dragonfire, so he could kill the undead. I drank poison for him. I struck Nimueh down with lightning. I've killed for him. So, so many times. Bandits and assassins and brigands and soldiers, and I’ve lied for him and kept secrets for him and listened as he called me a fool. For destiny.” Merlin's voice breaks then—for destiny, for him. Always for him. "Morgana. Mother and gods above, Gwen, I poisoned Morgana—"

“What the _hells_ —” she gasps, pushing herself up on her hands. Her whole chest pulls taut in pain, and Merlin rushes to brace her. She struggles against his hold until he eases her down and lets go. It must be the potion interfering with her ears. It must be stronger than Merlin had said. “What—when, Merlin? Why?”

“When Morgause and her knights came. Before Uther died. Because of—destiny.” He is fully crying now, tears leaving shiny trails down his cheeks. “She—she was going to kill him. That's what the prophecy said. I had to save him. I had to.”

They had all been close once, in the brighter seasons of years past. Merlin helped them sneak a Druid child with magic out of Camelot the summer he first came. He sat with them in the audience seats of tourneys, and carried their baskets for them when they went to the market, and complained to them about the rigors of court life when he was sure no one else was listening. About once a fortnight, in the blooming months, he gave them both flowers tied with ribbons from Gaius’ stores, and Morgana teased Gwen for being sweet on him.

That was a very long time ago. 

“You tried to kill her.” Gwen says blankly. She still doesn't understand. 

“I did,” Merlin snarls. The tears keep welling as he keeps talking. “I poisoned her, and I stood there and watched, I watched as she choked on her own breath, and I left her to tend to Uther, and I—” His words sound like they are wrenched from his throat, “—I have damned myself every waking moment since then.”

Gwen’s throat aches, even with the soothing draught. She remembers when Morgana refused to accept drinks if she did not see them being prepared before her, and ate all her food with a silver knife. When she turned away all and any aid and regarded everything with hateful and brittle suspicion and retreated to a place where even Gwen could not reach her. No wonder Morgana had pulled away from them, nursing her wounded distrust for all the long months preceding her departure. What else was she to do? They all turned on her first.

“Did you ever tell her?” she asks at last. “About—your magic? Any of it?”

He shakes his head, and a heaviness settles in Gwen's stomach. Morgana, alone and crackling with anger and terrified of herself. Poisoned by one of the precious few she could call a friend for a destiny that damned her. And Merlin—alone and burdened with a future he never asked for. Killing the ones he held dear in the name of unrelenting fate. Neither of them in truth alone, but both of them certain of it. 

Gwen thinks through the numbing haze that she is angry now, hot with the very sort of anger Merlin had feared before, and horrified beyond that, but she holds out one trembling hand nevertheless, and Merlin takes it. “You should have told her," she says heavily. "But what’s done is done.” Empty platitudes are nothing more than the weapons of cowards, but she doesn’t know what she can utter in their stead. 

"I know," Merlin whispers.

There are hundreds of things she never told her lady, back when the world was green and she was unwittingly cruel in her ignorance. They pour from her now, honey on the rim of a bitter cup. For all her anger, for all her horror, she doesn’t know what she would do if she lost another friend. “Merlin, you are not alone.” She struggles until she can meet his eyes. “Listen to me. You never were. You never will be.”

He nods and then folds, pressing his face into her shoulder, and she can feel the wetness of his tears seeping through her shift. 

"I—don't blame you." It must be a feat of magic, that she manages to finish the sentence before she starts to drift again.

She dozes the afternoon away. In her lucid periods, she hears Merlin pacing around the chamber, turning visitors away from the door and tinkering with tinctures, and Gaius returning with parcels from the marketplace. He starts to grind something in the mortar and pestle. A thick, earthy smell fills the room. Merlin helps her up again and gives her broth to drink, and she forces down as much of it as she can bear.

“What in Brigit’s name was on that knife?” she gasps out, shoving the bowl of broth out of her face.

“Many substances which have been forbidden under the king’s law,” Gaius intones. The _thudding_ of the pestle stops. “You were very lucky, my dear. And his majesty was very lucky that you had such good—instincts.”

Merlin eases her back down, casting a questioning look over his shoulder in Gaius’ direction. Gwen tugs on his sleeve and shakes her head as much as she is able, and he subsides, closing his mouth with an audible click of his teeth. Gaius comes to her bedside, a bowl filled with a murky liquid balanced in his hand. It smells of clove and violet, and something darker. She wants to recoil, but all she manages is a shudder. She knows that smell.

“Just something to help you sleep,” Gaius tells her kindly. Is it better or worse that he is trying to protect her, that he so clearly cares?

She drinks the potion. 

The morning after, she wakes up thinking she is being torn apart. Her wound alone cannot explain the pain in her body. Her head throbs in time with the stabbing seizing in her lungs. The light hurts. She can’t think clearly. She can’t breathe. She feels like she is being dragged beneath a river with pockets full of stones, like someone’s hands are closed around her throat and pressing down. It is the same potion which she had given to Morgana every night for nigh-on four years, even after she knew that it was hurting her somewhere no one else could see. She slipped it into honeyed milk when she refused—so that Morgana could sleep, she thought, feeling proud. So that she could get some rest. 

At least Merlin had the honesty to poison her outright. Gwen surveys her hands. There should be more blood on them. 

Merlin doesn’t let her resume her duties for a full two days after the incident. She might admit to being exhausted by the short walks from the patients’ pallet to the chamber pot if confronted at sword-point, but by mid-morning on the second day, she is already itching to leave. 

The bedrest, punctuated only by her brother's visits and Merlin's puttering, drives her into a frenzy. Merlin constantly tries to help her in whatever she is doing, and the hurt is palpable on his face when she shies away from him unthinkingly, remembering anew his revelations. She needs to get out. She needs her hands to do something, for the singing and chatter of others to fill her ears. The luxury of idleness is foreign to her. After Merlin leaves to run errands for the king, she spends half a bell debating whether or not she can convince one of the maids to help her back to her own rooms before the door to Gaius’ chambers opens and Imogen steps into Gwen’s view. She is clutching their embroidery baskets in one hand and a small bundle of lavender in the other, and she is gritting her teeth in utter fury.

“I told you that you couldn’t let them win,” Imogen bites out, thrusting the flowers at her. “And you went and got yourself _stabbed_.”

Gwen cannot do anything but grin as she takes the lavender. The past handful of days have wound her as tense as a bow at full draw, and seeing Imogen standing there, offended at nothing more than the fact that someone had the temerity to stab her, releases the arrow of her worry. She levers herself into a sitting position, inching to one side of the pallet, and Imogen settles down next to her, setting their embroidery baskets between them. Gwen unrolls her panels and starts making her flowers bloom again. Her fingers struggle with her needle, but she falls into the rhythm of her work easily enough. She begins humming the same song Imogen had sung what seems like a year ago, about the woman who saves her love from the faerie queen’s ride. Imogen joins her, singing in harmony, and together they recount love’s many transformations: a snake, a bear, a lion bold, and through them all, a woman brilliant and unyielding. 

“Judith loves this song,” Imogen announces when they finish. “I don’t get it. The lady should've just run.”

Gwen rolls her eyes. “Don’t you have a romantic bone in your body?” she asks.

Imogen scowls. “I know I don’t.”

Gwen snorts, turning back to her embroidery. She doesn’t point out that Imogen had been the one to learn the song, and sing it through unerringly, without skipping a verse.

The next time Gwen falls asleep, she finds herself in a great field of white. There is no sky and no ground, no sun to cast a shadow; only a yawning chasm of nothing, not even the dark. She whirls around, but without anything to mark direction, she cannot even tell she is moving. The stillness is dizzying. The only thing half as blank Gwen has seen was Camelot in a snowstorm, when it was snowing so thickly that she could not make out the sky. Her hands are starkly real and strange, too solid against the blankness beyond them. Her clothes are the same ones she wears in her waking hours. 

The nothingness is eerie, her lucidity even eerier. She knows, with an acute certainty, that she is dreaming. She has never seen anything so empty. Dreams should at least have correlates in reality, and there is nothing of her waking life here. There isn’t even a horizon to walk towards, only the unbroken white.

“Mother’s bitter _tears_ ,” comes a snarl from behind her.

There is suddenly a behind, and a before. Gwen turns around and stumbles on the groundlessness at the sight of Morgana standing among the white, her jaw clenched and her eyes red and swollen. Her gaze is directed not at Gwen but rather upwards, at the no-sky. “I have done nothing but serve you,” she screams in a ragged voice, holding her hands upturned in a gesture of furious supplication. “I have done nothing but avenge you, and this is how you repay me?”

Gwen can only stare as Morgana rails at the blankness. She swallows down the sight of her, voraciously, unsure of what she finds the most astounding—her taut neck, strained by the upturning of her eyes; the tendrils of her hair; the palpability of her fingers and the tendons running along the backs of her hands and her wrists, the anger still bubbling at the back of her own throat from seeing Lancelot’s dead body in a cell. She has never had a dream so real as this. 

“Must you show her to me?” Morgana pleads, and Gwen realizes in the same span of time two things—that this is Morgana and not some apparition of slumber, because her imagination in all its strength cannot conceive of Morgana begging, and that Morgana does not know Gwen is truly before her, because Morgana would never let another living being see her beg.

“My lady—” she starts, and Morgana screams again, wordless, raging.

“You will not speak,” she gasps, like she is drowning. “You—you are a ghost, an apparition, sent by the Mother to taunt me. You are nothing. You are _nothing_.”

The terror on her face belies her stinging words. Gwen takes a step forward and extends her hand as Morgana rears back. “I’m not nothing, Morgana,” she says. “I am here.”

“No, you are not,” Morgana spits. “This is a dream. A fever of my mind. You—you are in your castle, safe with your king—and you—” she whirls again to the no-sky, gnashing her teeth, “—are testing me.” She holds her hand out and conjures from the blankness a blade of gleaming black, fitted perfectly to her palm. “And I will not be found wanting.”

Morgana lunges at her, and Gwen dives to the side by virtue of her instincts, thrusting her hand out in a vain attempt to ward off the blow. There rings forth a clang of blades, metal on metal chiming, and Gwen looks down at her own hand and the sword in her grip. The blade is familiar to her—her father had let her help him with its forging, tempering the metal until it held strong and true, the finest blade they ever made together. There is a golden sheen to the metal that could not have come from human hands, and she remembers what Merlin told her about the sword he had taken from her, that he had burnished it in dragonfire. The hilt is red leather, and the blade is engraved with runes, beautiful and unreadable. She knows its name.

“Excalibur,” Morgana says faintly. She too is staring at the sword in Gwen’s hands, stunned.

Gwen pushes herself away from Morgana, re-centering her weight, her sword raised at the ready. She takes deep, heaving breaths as Morgana swivels around to her, a desperate smile cracking her face in twain.

“Maybe it is you,” she says, and then she attacks again.

Gwen parries, the force of Morgana’s blow forcing her back a step. She feints high and then slides her blade down, locking their swords at the hilt and twisting to disarm. Morgana wrenches her blade from the hold and slashes up, almost quicker than Gwen can follow. Gwen dances back, and they start duelling in earnest.

It has been years since they last sparred, and Gwen finds no shame in admitting a sharp, angry pleasure at the flurry of parries and counters they exchange. Her blood is thundering in her ears. They are both good with blades; Morgana was the ward of a battle-happy king who threw tourneys at every festival, so she knew every maneuver on the field before she was tall enough to ask for a practice sword. Gwen grew up in a smithy. Iron is in her blood, and she knows the proper heft and balance of swords better than many of the knights—but Morgana is faster. Faster and more forceful, for all that she is reckless. She catches the tip of Gwen’s blade with her own and flicks it down, pressing the edge of her sword to Gwen’s throat before Gwen can block. 

Both of them are breathing hard, and from so close, Gwen thinks she should be able to feel Morgana’s exhalations, but she cannot. 

“You were fighting to hurt me,” Morgana says, wondering. “What has happened to you, my lady?”

“You were fighting to kill me,” Gwen counters, grinning wildly, dispersing with all gentle words. “And you happened, my lady. You left us. You left me. I served you for half my life and loved you for all that time, and you left us all. You killed my people. And then you came back wearing the skin of a man I thought had died, and you hurt me the only way you knew how."

“And you left me.” Morgana presses the blade harder into her neck, and it stings as much as a real sword’s bite. Gwen wonders if she is bleeding. “You were the kindest of my poisoners. You left me little by little, each day you spent with my dear brother, tending to our beloved father, bowing to a king’s law that would have seen me burned alive.”

“Do it, then,” Gwen snarls. “Kill me for a law I never wanted. You planned to, when you crowned yourself queen. I heard you call for my execution. Think of this as a trial run.”

Morgana hesitates. She reaches out to touch Gwen, but her fingers pass through her like they are both naught more than the white nothingness all around them. She snatches her hand back as though Gwen had burned her, shock clear on her features, and Gwen takes that moment to strike, knocking Morgana's blade to the side with her own. She steps in close and curls her free hand around something else—a well-worn wooden handle, familiar, dear. Before Morgana can regain her balance, Gwen has her knife pressed to her throat, right against the pulse.

Morgana is panting, color high on her cheeks. Her surprise gives way to a burning hunger as she surveys Gwen's face. "Good for you," she breathes. “And here I thought you loved me. Are you going to do it, my lady?”

Gwen goes still, and Morgana laughs.

“Can you do it? You're a good woman. A good queen. A good wife. You'll always be better than me, Gwen. You know what you should do.” Morgana lets her sword fall to the no-ground, and it makes a clatter like the chiming of bells before vanishing. “Think of it as a trial run for when you watch your husband kill me for my sins.”

Gwen’s blood is roaring in her ears, but her hand does not waver where she presses her knife to Morgana’s neck. Morgana looks ravenous, triumphant. “It’s not even real,” she whispers, running her tongue along her lips. “We’ll both wake up from this. It might hurt, but I daresay I won’t even bleed.” She presses her throat into the edge of the blade, exhaling from the metal’s bite, and her smile grows even wider. “Make me hurt, for all those I have hurt.”

A good woman. A good queen. A good wife. Burn the witch, for Camelot, for home and king and kingdom.

Gwen throws her knife to the side. “I am not as good as you think I am,” she spits.

She starts awake, her heart pounding. 


	6. Swallow the Sky

_Did Uther even want to subdue the land with steel and fire before he met you? Would he have done it with such alacrity if you did not whisper in his ear?_

_But would you have even wanted a grand kingdom with such hunger if you had not been born the youngest daughter to a near-penniless lord? Even of your meager kingdom, Agravaine was to inherit your land, Tristan your wealth. Everything that could ever be yours was granted to your brothers, even the final word on your marriage. The Lord de Bois cared more about your brothers’ vassals than your safety. Your brothers cared more for your reputation than your ambitions. And you wanted. You wanted. You wanted to unhinge your jaw and swallow the sky._

_And who am I, to deny you what no one else even knew to give you?_

_I can never deny you. Each night, before I go into your rooms, I tell myself that this will be the last time I kiss you. The last time I hold you. I need to warn the people of the Isles, to submit myself to their justice. I cannot look at you without feeling sick. Behind my eyes, the Valley is already burning. But I cannot leave you without feeling even sicker. I must bear witness._

You can still lose the child, _I begged last night as I carded my fingers through your hair. Time and time again, I have told you the price the Mother would demand for the life of your child._ You don’t have to die for your kingdom, Ygraine. You can still live.

I want my child to rule over Albion, and their children, and theirs, _you told me fiercely._ I will live on through them.

_My tears fell then, salt and stinging. You railed against the future deaths of others but accepted your own like it was already a certainty. Why do you not understand that you are a woman, a heart and a body and a mind, with so much life to live, with so many who love you? Why has the prison of your world closed in on you so quickly? There are countless forms of glory accorded to heroes—death in battle by the sword, a long and healthy life in a castle stronghold, a crown and a scepter. Couldn’t they have let you claim one of these paths to renown?_

Love them for me. _You held me tight._ Swear to me, that you will love them for me. Since I cannot.

_I only shook my head and wept the more._

Merlin is still hovering, watching worriedly from the side as Gwen changes the bedding and sheets in Arthur’s inner chambers. Gwen accepts it for the time being, because she needs answers. The rooms are empty save for them, but Gwen is still careful to close the door and lower her voice before she starts asking questions.

“Have you ever had a—dream connection with someone else?” She starts to fold the hangings so they all fit into the laundry basket. 

Merlin makes a strangled noise, his eyes flying wide. “Is this Morgana?” he rushes to ask. "Gwen—Gwen, look at me. Is it a spell? Are you enchanted?"

She had woken up with a line of stinging fire along her neck, right where Morgana’s sword touched her, but when she studied her reflection, there was nothing there. The skin of her throat tingled after she slid her fingers along the mark, her hand coming away tacky with phantom blood. The cut itches even now, a scratch along her consciousness. She wonders if Morgana’s throat and mind are bearing Gwen's mark in turn.

Merlin sets a hand on her shoulder, and she doesn’t remember to shy away. Old habits overtake new revelations with ease. She might question Merlin now, but she still wants to trust him. “It’d be easier if it was an enchantment,” she says as she lets him scrutinize her. “I wish it was. It’d be easier than—this.”

“Dream connections—they’re rare,” Merlin says. “I’ve read a little about it in Gaius’ books. They can happen between two people with the sight, but the dreamers usually have to have a psychic connection in the first place. It’s only been recorded between—” he breaks off, staring at her, and Gwen can feel her cheeks grow hot.

“Lovers.” Gwen finishes his sentence without much hope.

“It’s only been recorded between lovers,” Merlin repeats faintly. He sits down on Arthur’s bed like his legs can’t support him anymore. “Gwen—no, Gwen, don’t tell me—”

Gwen sits down next to him, burying her face in her hands. “I didn’t know how I felt until she was already gone.” She glances over at Merlin. “I’m sorry. I know—I know she’s hurt you. I know she’s hurt so many.”

“What—will you do about it?” 

Merlin’s voice is small. His hands are tense and wary—bracing against something monumental. He has done a litany of things in Arthur’s name. She imagines she could become another casualty of his vaunted destiny, should she act against the king. But he would still mourn her. She can be certain most of all in that.

“Nothing.” Gwen barks out a laugh. “She’s still wreaking bloody havoc in the border towns, Merlin, I’m hardly going to join her.” She sighs, straightening from her slump. “This is my home. My kingdom. I will see no one harm this land, not even someone I love.”

Merlin stares at her, jaw working, unable to muster a response. “I believe you,” he says at last. “Gods and hells, I wouldn’t believe anyone else if they said that, not even a king, but I believe you.” He too starts laughing, helpless and shaking. “We really are a pair, aren’t we?” 

He continues before Gwen can even begin to answer. “I wish I could be like you. Brigit’s knees, I wish I could set this—” he digs his fingers into his sternum, claw-like, “— _this_ —aside so easily.”

“You think this is easy?” Gwen is torn between offense and sympathy. There is nothing easy about what is welling up inside of her, but she also knows that she never needed to question where she stands. These are her mountains. Her rivers. Her people, who work and love among them, who fight to live as they deserve. She would choose Camelot over any woman or man. 

“At first—the prophecy was for the return of magic.” Merlin’s hands are curled into fists where they rest at his sides. “And that was why I stayed. So I could one day be free. But then—by the time I found out magic would be what killed him—I knew I would choose him over freedom. And I have. Time and time again. He asked me, Gwen,” he bursts out. “He asked me if magic had a place in this kingdom, and I said—”

He cannot bring himself to repeat what he had said. It is a bitter love, Gwen thinks, that causes so much hurt.

“If magic were allowed to flourish in Camelot,” Gwen tells him, as gently as she can, “then there would be less hate, and less anger, and less fear. And less danger.”

“It’s not worth the risk.” Merlin’s words are brittle and absolute. “Magic will be what kills him. It has no place here.”

“But it does.” Gwen wraps her arms around Merlin, holding him close. “You’re here. I’m here.” They have a place here, by the fact of their being. “We’ve been here,” she tells him, “and we always will. Our lives are not a crime, Merlin. The only sin we’re guilty of is the sin of living.”

Merlin laughs again, an unhappy sound. He pulls away from her and curls in on himself. “It sounds so simple when you say it,” he says. “But you don’t know a damn thing about this, Gwen, no matter how good you make it sound. You’ve never had to live afraid of yourself, afraid that you’re a monster, afraid of this—this _thing_ inside of you—”

"You aren't a monster, Merlin—"

"You don't know that," he snaps. “You didn’t grow up in fear. You've never been so afraid that you hated yourself. Of course you can say that.”

"I say it because it's right."

"No." He bares his teeth. "You say it because you don't know any better."

She stills, taken aback. Merlin is rarely angry, and the last time she had seen a rage so wounded and resigned, it had been in the green of Morgana's eyes. 

"You're right," Gwen admits after a long silence. "I never have known that fear." 

She meets his gaze squarely. "Not for myself, at least. Not until now. But I still grew up in Camelot after the Purges, and every time I saw a woman burned, every time I saw a man drown, I felt terror. I knew when magic users were feared and pitied by everyone in the lower town, and I felt that same way. I had to, to keep going through my days." Her voice has risen to a desperate pitch. "I was in a city that hated me. I didn't know it then—but now that I do, all the hate and fear and terror I have ever learned are clamoring at me, and I think they will clamor for every day I am on the Mother's earth."

Her hands are fisted in the hangings, clenched tight enough to distort the fabric. She does not like admitting either to hate or to fear, likes even less the uncertainty they confess, but that doesn't change how true they ring.

Merlin doesn't respond, one way or another. Arthur's return finds them still in his rooms, now standing in opposite corners of the main chamber and sweeping the dust and cobwebs from the crevices in the stone walls. “Merlin,” the king announces, letting his cloak fall in a heap on a chair, “are you really so useless that you dragged Guinevere up from bed rest after she was fatally poisoned to help you with the chores I pay you to do?”

It might be an attempt at levity, or a rote habit. It certainly is how these two have always talked to each other. Gwen knows that Arthur means nothing by it, and that he has learned over the years to value Merlin’s loyalty, but his nonchalant mockery makes her want to snap more than usual. “It’s nothing, Arthur,” she says instead, still with her back to him. There are kings who would whip servants for that kind of insolence. “The boredom was driving me out of my mind, and I was happy for the company.”

From where she stands, she can see Merlin’s shoulders stiffen. “Gwen—”

“It’s alright, Merlin.” She does face Arthur then, setting the duster aside and brushing off her hands. “Truly.”

Arthur is staring at her, brow furrowed. “Merlin,” he says again. It is now a clear command, which makes Gwen bristle in a different way, “you are dismissed until the evening bell. You can finish this up then.”

Merlin’s eyes dart between them before he makes for the exit, departing without so much as a goodbye.

The pile of the king's cloak is an eyesore. Gwen stares at it. She determinedly does not tidy the mess, for all her fingers itch to hang it up. Arthur pauses in drinking from the jug of watered wine always on his desk, cup half-raised to his mouth. He groans, setting it aside, and goes to hang his cape on its hook.

“It’s been a while since you’ve done that,” he mutters, settling into his chair and picking up his wine again.

Gwen tilts her head to the side. She hasn’t done it since they came of age. Uther threw her in the dungeons for a night when she was fifteen because she screamed at the crown prince in the middle of the great hall. She was wearied to her bones from lugging bathwater up and down the stairs for the whole of the day, and the sight of Arthur dropping slices of venison on the floor for his hunting hounds made her see red.

It had been in her tenth winter that she joined the castle’s service, when her father’s forge was struggling and she was eager to prove her mettle in the world, and in all the months between her tenth and fifteenth name-days, she never even got to touch the food that the prince was throwing to his animals. Morgana had cried and left the table in a strop when the guards took Gwen away, berating Arthur for making her maid upset, and Gwen remembers Arthur, the little prince, watching at her as she was being escorted out. He had not looked angry or even amused—only confused, and hurt, and touched with the faintest glimmer of breaking guilt. 

After that night, when her father forewent his own sleep to sit outside of her cell, and gave her the apple her brother had saved for her from his own dinner and begged her not to draw the king’s ire, she never raised her voice at the prince again. She’s been serving him for years. A month ago, before the summer was so hot and stifling, she would have picked up the cloak without complaint. She would have done so gladly.

“Thank you,” she tells him, and he doesn’t answer. She settles in the newly vacant chair, sitting on the very edge of the seat. “How was the council?”

He still can’t meet her eyes. “It’s miserable without you,” Arthur half-snarls, and Gwen can’t tell if his resentment is directed at her or at himself. 

“Arthur, I couldn’t even talk in the councils.” She knows how to use the information she gleans from them, and knows how to position herself to best glean that information. That in itself is power. But it doesn’t change the fact of why she was ever there. “I was there to serve water.”

“But—you listened,” he counters. “You were a witness. Gwen, when you were in the room, I knew that there was at least one person in there who was thinking about what would be the best for Camelot, not for—padding their personal revenues with the spoils from the war, or currying favor from me when I have no favor left to curry.”

He looks hurt now,and she sees him as he was back when she first yelled at him, when the seams of his world were showing. Her face softens. “They might all be your father's men, but they are your council now,” she says. “You can replace them, if their interests do not reside in Camelot’s people. But—surely there are some men on there who support you. Agravaine is there, is he not?”

For all that Gwen dislikes the man, Agravaine is nothing if not devoted to his family, and Arthur to him. It makes her all the more surprised when she sees Arthur sigh through his nose, pressing his lips thin. “My uncle cares about making me a good king,” he grits out. “I—do not know how much he cares about the kingdom I must serve as king.”

Agravaine is all Arthur has left of his blood family. His uneasy mutterings of discontent with his uncle are the equivalent of a shouted challenge from anyone else. “What happened, Arthur?” she asks him.

Arthur shakes his head, rifling through the pile of records on his desk until he finds one of the many maps of Camelot and the surrounding kingdoms. “Astolat. Wenwood.” He places tokens next to the towns. “Linford. Sigelai. All of the towns bordering the Southron region are now under threat.”

Uther never cared about the border towns. He turned away their petitioners when they came after drought or flood, saying that Camelot’s bounty of wealth was better used for other things. Morgana, when she was in Camelot, had cared for all of them. She begged the king to send aid to them, and railed at him when he refused time and time again, and diverted income from her own household to support them when Uther refused to temper his indifference. 

And now—the harm Uther once inflicted through negligence, she now inflicts through open war. 

“Ever since Caerleon became neutral territory, Morgana's been drawing heavily on Helios’ aid.” Arthur starts to ink in where their troops have moved, marking the parchment with red. “He is—formidable and canny. And welcoming to sorcerers.”

Helios has been harrying Camelot’s trade routes since Uther was at his height. His name carries weight across the kingdom. “You’re worried about recruitment,” Gwen realizes.

“My uncle—Lord Agravaine—he wants to kill Kara. To make an example for defectors.”

The name is unfamiliar. Gwen’s mind races through the arrests made for sorcery in the last fortnight. There is no one except—

“She was the girl who tried to kill you.” Whom Gwen had told him to save.

“That’s her name. Kara.” Arthur is so quiet that she can barely hear him above the scratching of his pen. “I spoke with her. She called me a tyrant. My father—Uther, he killed her father and mother, when she was little. The last of the Druids to be burned in Camelot. She never even knew them; she only knows we slaughtered them.” His breath shudders in and out of his throat. “The town scribe took her in. Fourteen summers old, and raised afraid. She watched the execution of the candler's son, and—I think, maybe, she wanted to kill me because there wasn’t anything else left for her to do. I—don’t think she cared much about what would happen to her afterwards.”

It is on the tip of her tongue to remind him that he killed the candler's son, who had been no more than seventeen summers old and had done even less than Kara, but when Arthur lifts his eyes to hers, she understands that there is no need to say it out loud.

“I said I would not kill her. That I could not. I cannot slaughter the people I serve. And then my uncle berated me for being weak, in front of all the council. I think several of the lords might turn to currying favor from him now.” Arthur laughs, rueful and pained. The scene is an easy one to picture—the lords, turning from Arthur to his uncle like flying insects towards a lantern, then back to Arthur, sensing carrion. “You were right about him, Gwen.”

Something barbed is blooming in her chest. It might be hope. “I’m sorry,” she says. There is no triumph for her in his admission.

“When I killed the boy in my father’s name, it was called justice. When she tried to do the same for her friend, it was treason.” Arthur digs at his desk with his nails. He speaks as though he equally cannot bear silence and words. “You said you wouldn't lie to me, Gwen. Don't lie to me now. Is it my crown that keeps my justice from being cruel?”

“You are not a cruel man.” Gwen takes a deep breath, weighing her answer with care. “And I believe you have done everything you have in the name of your kingdom. I would not accuse you of cruelty.”

Arthur knows her well enough to glean her meaning. “But my actions are naught more than that.”

He is small now, head bowed, as small as the tow-headed boy of thirteen. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. 

She is sorry that they live in a world that makes monsters of them all.

Arthur abruptly breaks into laughter again, the sound as ragged as dry leaves. "Do you remember when we were all happy, Gwen?" he chokes out. "Gods—do you think it was even real?"

The days when they were happy—when they had no more summers than Kara, and his hair hadn't darkened much from when he was tow-headed and round-cheeked, and Morgana was gangly, all elbows and knees and reckless grin, and she herself was stocky and had lungs made for shouting. When they were too young to know all the shapes of grief and fear. She has thought of those days so many times they seem like a dream to her. Arthur's eyes are fixed on the far distance as he says, "The three of us, running amok in the forests. Without a care in the world. Morgana would harangue me until I sparred with her. You kept score. We'd sneak dinner from the kitchens afterwards, and the kitchen maids let us get away with murder. We were—happy," he repeats, wondering.

He sounds like he is reciting a story he has half-forgotten. "We were," Gwen says, because she too knows that story.

Those used to be her favorite afternoons, when she played in the castle grounds with the prince and the king's ward. She might not have liked Arthur then, but it was on those days that she got to eat like him, gorged herself on sweetmeats and fruit until her belly ached. What he remembers as happiness, she remembers as reprieve, as satiety. The pleasant sting of memory turns to a blade when Arthur tells her, "Father said it would be the lash, the next time a guard caught me out with the two of you. It's why I stopped."

He still grieves for his father. He loves him. He always has, the way falling objects love the ground. That is the only thing that makes her hold her tongue.

"I had to. But—I didn't want to. How could I? She's my sister, Gwen," Arthur whispers. “The only sister I've ever had. The only friend—” he breaks off. “I knew her, and she knew me. And now we—we're—”

"You're at war." 

Gwen has to be the one to say it out loud. It is a truth, an incontrovertible fact, but it still makes him flinch.

"We're at war," Arthur echoes her. "I'm at war against my own sister, and I—I beheaded a boy for the crime of speaking, and I was just now half a moment away from tying a girl to the stake and burning her alive. A child, Gwen. Who wanted nothing more than freedom. And I was about to slaughter her. How in the hells did we get here?" he asks pleadingly. His breath comes fast and shallow. “Believe you me, I wish to keep living as much as anyone else, but I cannot help but think—the next dagger that comes for me—” he turns away from her. “You should let it fall as it will.”

“Don’t you dare,” Gwen says sharply. “I will not lose you, Arthur.” 

She rises from her chair and circles around his desk, hovering her hands over his shoulders. She wants to guide him up to look at her, but she doesn’t know if he would bear her touch. “You lived your whole life in your father’s rule. You cannot dig out what he planted and grew in a day, or a sennight, or even a year. What’s done is done.” She is clearer in the head now than she was when she last said that to Merlin, but she still has nothing better to say. "The gods can afford to repay a life with a life, but none of us have enough lives for that kind of justice."

Arthur nods. Gwen says her next words like they are a benediction, the only one she can give him. “What remains for us is atonement.”

Kara starts to work in the apothecary with Merlin and Gaius. Her fosters disowned her after news of her attempted assassination spread through the lower town; she has no home left. Gaius gives her a pallet next to the hearth in his main room and nothing more. Twin bands of cold iron and silver encircle each of her wrists and ankles, incongruously beautiful for the power they exert. Gaius treats her coldly, setting her to the most arduous tasks in the castle’s practice; under his and Merlin's direction, the girl spends her days scrubbing his cauldrons with lye soap, strong enough to strip the living skin from her hands. She is only allowed to leave the healers’ rooms for short errands elsewhere in the castle, with Merlin at her side. The first day Gwen comes into the apothecary with a midday meal for the two of them, three of Hilda’s best mince pies preciously balanced in her hands, Kara throws the food on the ground, and snarls, _You were the one who brought me here_. _You should have told them to kill me._

It is a mercy to live. But to live in a castle such as Camelot’s, built on top of unnamed graves, surrounded by distrustful glares and unrelenting walls, all the while having part of her spirit trodden underfoot—there is no path that is free from cruelty.

Gwen collects the food from the floor and dusts it off. She can save Kara's portion for her supper. She tugs Merlin into his room by his sleeve and closes the door behind him. "You’re a healer," she says, wrapping the pies in a spare kerchief. "Do you know of anything that can help her?"

Merlin’s expression goes blank and eerie for a moment before his more usual sheepish grin pulls at his mouth. “I’m not that good at healing, truth be told,” he says, shrugging his shoulders.

"What are you talking about? You saved me from a fatal poison, Merlin, I don't know much about healing magic, but that can't be—"

"No." He holds out a hand. "First of all, what I did for you wasn't so much healing magic as me throwing the boundaries of the worlds open and screaming at the Goddess in all her forms to save you, and it was terrifying and I will never, ever do it again. Ever. I'm being honest here; I'm not good at healing magic. I'm—much better at the opposite."

Gwen nearly drops her pies at the edge in Merlin's voice. "You don't want to help her," she realizes.

"No, of course I don't. She tried to kill Arthur."

He always looks at Kara warily, but Gwen before thought that it was his usual cautiousness around things he does not know. But now she understands—he regards the girl the way hunters regard a wolf: dangerous, the sort of threat that demands an arrow.

"Arthur only spared her because you asked," Merlin says. He turns away, fiddling with parchment folios on his shelf. "But kindness isn't always the answer to these things. She's going to try again, sooner or later, and I have to be ready when she does."

"She is a child, Merlin." Gwen cannot keep her incredulity contained. "An angry, frightened girl with nowhere left to go. And you're telling me I shouldn't try to help her?"

"This is what it means to have magic in Camelot, Gwen," Merlin snaps, wheeling about to face her. "We have to pick a side."

"And you've—chosen this." Gwen points to the door, and the room beyond, where Kara is making her hands bleed on their command.

"I've chosen Arthur."

"No, you've chosen his law, you’ve chosen to punish in his name, and that is not the same as the man. You know as well as I do that the law is cruel—"

"She tried to kill him!"

"She wanted justice."

Merlin regards her with something approaching coldness in his eyes. "If that's what you call justice, then you've been spending too much time with Morgana in your dreams."

"Her way is no more justice than this," Gwen breaks out, "but that's still what she wants. And she's fighting her war to get it, because that is all we know as justice." She braces one hand against the wall, digging her skin into the grimy stone. "That is all this—gods-damned castle—will ever know as justice. Morgana, Kara, and all of them—they are trying to be heard, Merlin. How can you blame them for speaking the only language Camelot has ever taught them?"

Merlin crosses his arms. "Then what do you want me to do, stand back and watch the king die, the next time she comes in his direction with a knife?"

"No. But you shouldn't make her scrub all your cauldrons with lye, either." Gwen jerks open the door to his room. "Or at least give her some damn ointment."

The next time Gwen comes into the apothecary, Kara is chopping wormwood next to Merlin. She refuses Gwen's offer of food again, but her lye-cracked hands are neatly bandaged and packed with honey, and it says something about their castle that Gwen can call basic regard a kindness, but she is glad for it nonetheless. 

Riders come in from the outer towns every afternoon with news of the casualties from the ongoing battles in the northern towns and the Southron borders. The messengers are wearied, their horses heaving and foaming. Gwen eventually starts attending council meetings again—not to serve water, but to serve as a witness. She stands behind Arthur as he listens to the tidings they bring. Ismere fell a fortnight ago and now bows to Morgana; Helva fell yesterday after a long siege, longer than anyone had expected from the tiny citadel. Twenty of their own lost their lives in the final battle. Sixteen of Camelot’s people died at Astolat. Sigelai prepares for war.

“If this war goes on through the autumn, the harvest in all the towns will suffer.”

Arthur is seated at the head of the council table. The rest of the lord councilors have cleared out from the room, grousing about the losses in their annual revenue should Morgana take the land they own around Sigelai and Astolat. Elyan is on guard duty today, so Gwen sits down at Arthur’s right hand, pouring herself a cup of water as she studies the latest numbers from their war. Revenue losses. Trade losses. Losses of life.

“She is giving the towns on the Southron border no reprieve. The messengers have been saying that the ultimatum is the same every time—unconditional surrender and allegiance to her, or she and Helios' forces will attack them until they agree to her terms.” Arthur underlines several figures in red ink, the highest casualties from the past month. “And her mercenaries are attacking our supply caravans, too. We won’t be able to send aid if it comes to a siege.”

“They learned from Helva.”

“That they did.” Arthur exhales in a sigh. “I don’t think she’ll stop for the harvest. Or for winter. She’s just going to—keep going, and going, and going,” he says. “Brigit and all the gods, what’s going to make her stop?”

“What does she want?” Gwen asks in answer. She starts listing things off, almost idly. “The return of magic. Her own throne. Power. She'll stop for victory, Arthur. Same as any other king.”

“Are any of those worth—this?” Arthur splays out his hand on the black and red of their casualties, his every motion distraught.

Gwen taps her nail against the side of her cup.It is rare to see lords who care so much about their people. “Every child in Camelot learns of how your father subdued this kingdom with sword and shield in his wish to be the first high king of Albion. And we celebrate him for it. Is this—” she gestures at the room about them, the grand white walls, the rich tapestries, “—worth all that?”

Arthur doesn’t reply a long while, staring up at the rafters. Gwen clasps her hands on the table and waits.

“I—don’t think I can answer that,” he says at last.

“You don’t have to. Not now, at least.” Gwen drains her cup. “But remember, Morgana grew as you did. In Uther’s shadow. She denounces him and curses him, but he was still the only king she ever knew—and she wants to be a king. How else is she to become one?”

Morgana is already in the white of the no-world when Gwen finds herself there again. The war must be weighing heavily on Morgana’s sleeping mind—she is arrayed in armor today. Her overcoat is black and blazoned with a silver crow spreading its wings, and her hair is plaited into braids and pinned in a crown around her head. There are little cuts and scrapes on her face and her un-gauntleted hands, and she seems tired to her bones.

“You’re back,” Morgana says. Her blade materializes in her outstretched hand.

Gwen ducks beneath Morgana’s slash at her head, stepping to the side and kicking at Morgana’s knee. Her foot passes straight through Morgana’s leg, and the force of her kick unbalances her, making her stumble through Morgana’s body entirely. It shocks through her, blazing cold, and Morgana staggers back as well, looking down at her hands with a rising fright. She swings at Gwen again, and again, and Gwen weaves around the blows, hissing as the blade slices close to her head.

“Stand down, Morgana,” Gwen pants as she ducks between Morgana’s quick swipes. “Stop attacking me, I don’t—I don’t want to fight you—”

“And I—” Morgana shouts, “—don’t want you—in my _head_ —”

Her next swing is too fast for Gwen to avoid. There is a clang of metal on metal as Gwen blocks Morgana’s sword with the flat of her knife. The force of it reverberates down her arm. She and Morgana stare at each other in the silence that follows. Morgana’s breaths come loud and harsh. She must be more tired than even she seems, if such a short fight is already affecting her breathing. Her eyes are feverishly bright, and Gwen feels them calling her—like a flame to a moth, with the allure and command of simple natural law. One of the cuts on her chin is still bleeding. She should put something on them. They’ll scar if she doesn’t.

“Let’s talk,” Gwen says softly, and she steps away, letting her knife fall from her fingers. It disintegrates before it hits the ground.

Morgana regards her for so long that Gwen wonders if something has shifted in the fabric of their dream and taken her away entirely. Morgana finally nods, and her sword fades away into smoke. With a sneer, she spins on her heel and walks away from Gwen. “Talk, then,” she tosses over her shoulder.

Gwen starts walking after her. The instinct is ingrained deep in her bones—for fifteen years, Morgana walked and she followed. “Do you remember the stories you told me about Ismere and Helva?” she hears herself ask. “The girls you danced with there. And the summers I spent with you in the apple orchards.”

Morgana doesn’t answer. She starts walking faster.

Gwen speeds up, raising her voice. “Or when you argued with Uther for a full sennight to send aid to Astolat after the drought, when he said the peasants weren’t worth feeding. Or when we fought against the brigands in Ealdor when Uther refused to protect the town.”

Morgana’s feet stumble. She stops there, and Gwen stops too, within arm’s breadth of Morgana, close enough to touch her if they had been in a world where she could be touched. “Or when you forewent your income for your dresses and horses for three years,” she says. “And sent the money to Wenwood so they could repair their bridges and roads after the river flooded. Do you remember, Morgana?”

“Aye.” The affirmation sounds like it is dragged from Morgana’s lungs. “I remember.”

“You wanted to protect the people in those towns. To see them thrive. And now they are being cut down at your command.” Gwen swallows past the lump in her throat. “What changed, Morgana?”

Morgana turns around. “Are those like you and I not _people_ enough for you, Gwen?” Her gaze flashes like sunlight through new leaves. “Do you not want to see us thrive? I want freedom. And if I have to uproot this kingdom so we can live—so be it.”

Gwen meets Morgana’s gaze without flinching. “What life are you giving them with a sword at their throats? What have those townspeople ever done against magic-users?” she demands. “The villagers have never obeyed the king's law if they could help it. Half the apothecaries and midwives in any town use their magic to heal.”

“They swore allegiance to Arthur. They fight in his name.” Morgana’s eyes bore into her face, and Gwen imagines that she can feel the heat of them. Her next words are delivered like a vicious kiss, triumphant and sharp. “They have picked their side. You have. And I have, as well.”

“You are being cruel, my lady,” Gwen says. “Those who fight their wars in the names of others—they rarely get to choose a side.”

“I am trying to gain freedom for them,” Morgana retorts. “So they do not have to live under fear.”

“So why not offer them freedom? They will fight _with_ you, Morgana, on your side, the people in the border towns would come flocking to you if you offered them aid—”

Morgana scoffs. “If I became their pet sorceress, you mean. Peddling my cures and my powers for aid and asylum.” She pulls back her lips in a sneer. “I thought the same, when I started this war. But Morgause stopped me in my folly. I will not be a puppet queen, taken advantage of by anyone who tells me a pitiful tale. They have to respect my rule, Gwen.”

“So you want them to fear you,” Gwen says. “Like you and they both feared Uther.”

Morgana takes a step back, breaking their closeness. Gwen steps forward, pressing her advantage. “You are trying to rule them. And your ambitions are righteous and your hopes are great, but if your rule is more fire and steel, and nothing of reprieve—then your kingship is no different from Uther’s.”

Morgana flinches. “No,” she says. It is absolute, a refusal born of instinct. She bares her teeth, breath coming hard as she searches for something to say. “No. It’s not—” she breaks off. “I’m not Uther. He is the one who kept us low, I am fighting to release us from his lingering tyranny, _I cannot be Uther_ —”

“You swore never to be him. Time and time again, when we were little, you swore to be a better king than him. I remember that much as well. And now—this. For a dream of power.” Gwen reaches for her, stopping her fingers just before they touch her cheek. “What will you do about your oaths now, my lady?”

Morgana stares at her without replying. She suddenly lurches forward into Gwen’s touch, ripping a sound from her throat, but Gwen’s fingers never touch her. The white around them fades, and Gwen wakes up, her hand still straining for something she cannot feel.

_Albion. United, just, and free. Never mind that all those are contradictions. Albion—the very wish of Albion—is a fool’s dream. You only just finished subjugating a kingdom named Camelot, and you are already planning for your next conquest. Albion._

_You have so many plans, Ygraine. You lay them all out with stunning voracity as the numbered days wear on. A plan for taxation that would fix the roads to all the borders, that would build the roads in the first place. Bridges and ferries and watch-points. A council to rule in your citadel, made of all people from across the land, and a knighthood made of all who can take up a sword. Justice. Peace. Big and brilliant things, to let your people live in peace after the war they have endured in your name._

_It won't ever happen. Uther will burn more than even your war. I have told you this, and told you this, and still you will not listen._ He wants peace as well, _you insist._ He won't be so cruel to his people. They're his as well as mine.

_And they are mine as well as yours, and still I condemn them for you. You underestimate how easily love can become cruelty, my love._

“You said I was no different from my father,” Morgana says from behind her.

Gwen had spent the day directing the maids of the castle as they all prepared to swap out the thin tapestries of the summer for the thick woolen ones strong enough to protect against the fall and winter winds. It is still a month before the first true stirrings of the cooler seasons will hit, but the castle still must prepare. 

Arthur is careful to keep the dissolution of their romance as private as possible; the court still sees Gwen attending him in council, so all the maids still regard her with the jealous half-respect accorded to royal favorites. She is still one of them, though, so they let her listen as they gossip and sing. The war is all anyone can talk of. 

Everyone knows someone in Astolat, or Wenwood, or Sigelai—brothers and sisters and aunts and cousins. Everyone knows something about Morgana's rumored troops; the sorceress has the undead on her side again, or an army of giant eagles eager for human flesh, or a pack of wolves who only answer her call—or, most frightening of all, simple women and men who burn with anger against their own kin. The lists of the dead from Helva and Ismere have only just come yesterday. Althaea was lucky, because her daughter was not among them. Vera was less lucky, because her son was. 

"I am finding it difficult," Gwen admits, turning to face her, "to tell how you are."

The hurt is clear in the cast of Morgana’s scratched face, in the way she flinches before she remembers to hold herself tall. There are long cuts ripping through the side of her overtunic today; the last skirmish must have been a difficult one. “I tried to kill him for you,” she snaps. “After he murdered your father. That was the first time I tried to take him down, Gwen. It was for you.”

Gwen freezes. Morgana had never told her. She struggles to imagine how she might have felt, had Morgana succeeded in cutting Uther down, back when their world was peaceful and they were all young and happy—except they weren’t young then, and happiness is the story they write over the annals of their lives to make remembrance more bearable. Gwen wasn’t happy then. After her father died, she worked double shifts to keep herself busy, but that lead to days when she was too tired to tamp down on her grief as propriety demanded, and she sometimes thought fleetingly, caught between fantasy and fear, that she would wake up one morning and burn the citadel to the ground. 

If Morgana had gone through with her plan—they would've expected for Gwen to condemn the murder of her king. Condemn the cruelty of Morgana’s actions. Condemn Morgana, when Gwen hadn’t even been allowed to condemn her father's death. Not out loud. It was the king’s law, after all. The king’s justice.

“If anyone were to kill Uther to avenge my father’s death, it should have been me.” The words come out sharper than Gwen intended. “That should have been my choice.” 

Gwen doesn’t know how she would have reacted, had Morgana killed Uther back when they all wanted to be happy in the maw of the pale beast they called their castle, but she knows what needs to be said now. “Uther could have burned and bled a thousand times over for what he did, and that still would not have been enough. It is his law that erred, Morgana. Not just the man.” Gwen lifts her head to meet Morgana’s eyes. “Death is no substitute for justice. An eye for an eye, a hand for a hand—that was how the Purges started. How all of us burned.”

Morgana’s jaw is clenched, chin thrust high in a posture Gwen knows all too well—defiant, proud, and beneath it all, seething with a fervor that can only spring from helplessness. Gwen leans towards her and finishes, “And now you are burning us, Morgana. You and Arthur both.”

That is also Uther’s legacy. 

Morgana whirls away, her shoulders shaking. “I am not Uther,” she whispers at last. Gwen struggles to make out her words. “There are places all over Camelot, patches of ground where the sun refuses to shine. Those are the sites of mass graves—thousands buried, unmarked and unhonored. Uther never bothered to remember us.” Morgana struggles with her words for a moment. “And I—I know how many died.” 

She has to pause before she can continue. “I know,” she confesses. “I remember. At every town. At every pass. I count them all. I hear them clamoring. Thirty-seven at Helva. Nineteen at Ismere. Forty-four died when we took Astolat. I lit the fires and performed the Mother’s rites for all of them, no matter who they fought for.” 

Gwen’s breath stills in her lungs at the image of Morgana, standing alone in the baking-hot summer. Reciting prayers in front of pyres, the only one of the living among the blessed dead. “How many in Wenwood?” she asks.

“A score and three. So far.” Morgana makes a high sound of despair, muffled in the back of her throat. “There—was a witch here. Powerful. Who felled trees on Helios’ men. She killed ten of us by herself before we shot her down. She—gods, Gwen. She was so young.”

“Did you think that she would join you?” Gwen asks with an unhappy curl of her mouth. “Lay down her weapons and welcome the woman burning her town?”

She doesn’t have to imagine what that young witch looked like. She knows. Lit eyes. Bared teeth. 

Morgana’s voice, when she speaks again, is raw, like she had swallowed bloodied sand and coughed it up again. “I was trying to free her.” 

“She was protecting her home.”

Morgana sinks to the ground and sits in a heap, as though her legs can no longer support her. It looks like she is floating on a lake of mist, black tunic drifting through white water. She tilts her head up at Gwen, blinking tears out of her eyes. “What else would you have me do?” she asks helplessly. “Admit to mercy? Prove myself weak and fickle and throw myself at the feet of the villages I conquered? Surrender to Camelot’s mercy while magic is still outlawed? I won’t dishonor the dead by letting them die in vain, this war has to be for something, Gwen, it has to be—”

Morgana trails off, pressing her hands to her mouth, the same thing Gwen does when she is trying not to scream anymore. Gwen sits down next to her, near enough to reach over and touch her, if their world were to allow touch. 

“Is it worth it?” Gwen finally asks.

Morgana is silent for a long while before she whispers, “I don’t know.”

Gwen can only nod. Her fingers itch with a compulsive need to feel, and she hovers her hand above Morgana’s shoulder, above the finely worked mail of her dark armor. Morgana is hiding her face from her, but Gwen can imagine all too easily her guilt and grief bleeding together into one. “It’s hurting you,” Gwen says. A hurt that is paltry in comparison to a lost life, or a city razed, but hurt nonetheless, and hurt itself is an ugly thing to compare. “My lady—it’s hurting you so damn much, Morgana—”

“Shouldn’t you be glad for that?” Morgana asks the question without a trace of mockery. She only sounds tired.

“No.” Gwen lifts her hand to Morgana’s face, forgetting for a moment where they are, and her fingers feel none of the give of Morgana’s cheek. Morgana’s hand flies up to circle her wrist and hold her hand close, but her fingers fold in on themselves, catching nothing but air. 

A broken sound escapes Morgana, half-gasp and half-sob. “I will never be glad when you are hurt,” Gwen swears, her hand still lifted to Morgana’s cheek. “I will never be glad for that, no matter who we are, no matter what you or I have done—”

“ _Don’t say that._ ” Morgana curls away from Gwen as if to hide from the sight of her. “I am your enemy, Gwen,” she says desperately. “I want the throne your precious husband sits on, I want the land you will rule when you are crowned—”

“I won’t be crowned.”

Morgana freezes. She opens her eyes, slowly turning to regard Gwen again. “Surely my brother is not so much a fool that he’ll bow to the snivelling councilors who belittle you for your rank. You have more of a queen in you than any princess across the kingdoms.”

She sounds righteous and infuriated. She sounds like herself, like the woman Gwen remembers. Like she never left the citadel, and Gwen is at her side again. Gwen’s chest feels too hollow, and in lieu of reminding Morgana of how she had sent the woken dead to Camelot, and how she had wanted to ruin Gwen, ruin them all in the name of the throne, Gwen hears herself ask, “Is he your brother again?”

"He has always been my brother. We have the same blood," Morgana says. "We grew up in the same castle and ran in the same forests, and suffered the rule of the same tyrant. I cannot change that, no matter how inspirational his head on a stake will be to my soldiers."

Gwen laughs thickly, pressing the backs of her hands to her eyes. Morgana sounds the same, except Gwen now believes her threats in their entirety. "Do you miss him?" she manages.

"I try not to miss my enemies. Least of all a man who dishonors you."

Gwen knows well the futility of such an endeavor—she too is trying, and failing. Only in her dreams can she indulge in the contradiction of their connection. Gwen is an enemy, and beloved. Morgana is far away, by the razed halls of Wenwood, and she is a girl in Camelot again. All this at once, in a dream world, in the beat of a heart. 

"The dishonor isn't his. He wasn't the one who ended it. It ended because—I was in love with someone else." She takes a deep breath. “You really did win, my lady.”

It is Morgana's turn to start laughing, and she doesn’t stop until the sound leaves her throat entirely broken. “It would be easier—” she gasps after her laughter has mostly subsided, “—if you had lied.”

Gwen wants to steady her with a hand on hers, or an arm around her shoulder. But she cannot. “I’m tired of lying,” she says in lieu of comfort.

They sit in the aimless white, separated only as far as they need to maintain their delusion of closeness. Morgana has stopped laughing now. Her arms are braced on her knees, her shoulders hunched, and her whole body is shuddering. Gwen worries at the fabric of her dress with her fingertips. The hem of her outer skirt is more mending than fabric at this point. She can never make her patching match the hue of the rest of her skirt, no matter how much she tries.

She has spun and woven and sewn for Morgana since she was ten summers old, learned to loop her warp through the heddles so the thread never tangled. Her skirts might never match their mending, but Morgana’s dresses never appeared any less than glorious under her watch. The life of a king’s ward is riddled with battles—for what she was allowed to say in court, for the small rebellions she had to ration out so she would not be exiled entirely, for the power of simple refusal. She fought a war every day to be something other than a puppet, and Gwen was the one to arm Morgana for her every skirmish, with wool so fine that it did not scratch and surcoats of silk and velvet, braiding her hair with jewels and ribbons

Morgana was her lady. Even when Gwen despised the butcher who took her father's life, even when she felt the castle walls crushing her bones beneath their weight, Morgana was still her lady. Hers, through every court meeting and dress fitting, through all her night terrors and weeping days. Just as the war cannot sever the bonds of blood and nurture between the king and the sorceress, and they cannot be reduced to the cold simplicity of their titles, so too will Gwen always know Morgana as something more.

There are tears across her lady’s surcoat now, some of them fresh and still gaping; the others, small punctures and gashes all down her back, already mended with uneven stitches. Her lady had learned to sew. Gwen wonders why she hadn’t just mended the threads with magic, left the fabric perfect and new, like it had never known a sword or arrow. But healing is difficult work. Wounds never simply vanish, whether from skin or from the land. It is another way of remembrance—bearing memorials on her back in the name of all those for whom she is bearing witness.

“I think I’m waking up,” Morgana says.

She is fading from the white. Gwen throws all she knows to the wind, grasps at her shoulder in vain, pulls at the black of her tunic, but to no avail. Morgana looks at her, her face cracked open with wanting. From so close, Gwen should be able to feel her breath and breathe in the scent of her, but she cannot. 

“Morgause is wrong,” Gwen says. She would be grasping Morgana’s hand now, if she could. She would be holding her tight, no matter what armor, what form she has donned. “Mercy is not weakness. Please, my lady. Remember that.”


	7. Still Feel That Sun

The first tawny-speckled pears of the season have been picked, astringent and a little underripe. Gwen picks one up from the common table in the kitchens and bites greedily nonetheless, eager for the first signs of autumn in Camelot. She gathers a heel of bread and salt-pickled onions, and fishes out a slice of mutton from the pot of last evening’s gravy before settling down at one of the benches. Hilda walks past and hands her a cup of drink with a wink. Gwen takes a sip and hums in satisfaction at the taste of the first fresh cider of the year, so sour that it makes her mouth tingle.

Merlin sits down in front of her, already halfway done with his bread. She watches as he takes another bite before he has even swallowed his last. She has been to Ealdor, only briefly, but she still knows the village, with its hungry-eyed people. Even though she had grown up in the relative safety of the lower town, it still took her years to get used to the abundance of food in the castle. She might have never accustomed herself to the plenty had she not seen how the nobles ate, how freely they partook of the wine and new cheese and honey she would be whipped for, if she stole, and she understood then what it meant to be a servant.

Gwen wordlessly pushes Merlin the rest of her cider, and he hesitates before he takes the cup and drains it. 

“That’s good,” he says, setting the empty cup down.

Gwen takes another bite out of her pear. “They started pressing the apples today.”

The quiet between them stretches out again. Gwen finishes her fruit and then starts on the rest of her meal. Today is the first day in a long time the smoky air in the kitchen doesn’t feel hot enough to make her burst open, like the too-taut skin of little blackberry seedlets under the blaze of the sun.

“Gwen,” Merlin starts. He glances around the kitchens and lowers his voice. “I—I have books. On dreams, and—you know. They can help you, I think. If you want them.”

She knows a peace offering when she sees one, and she knows guilt when she hears it. “I would love to take a look at them. Thank you, Merlin.”

He nods, a small smile breaking and falling on his face. His hands are fidgeting where they rest on the table. “Is—Gaius—okay with you helping me?” she asks carefully.

Merlin shakes his head. “No,” he whispers. “He doesn’t know. I—was thinking. About what you said.”

He trails off and returns to his food. Gwen surveys him over the table. “And?” she prompts.

He shrugs.

They eat the rest of their meal in silence. Merlin shuffles off to attend to the king after gulping down one last cup of watered ale, and Gwen leaves the kitchen with considerably less haste, taking one of the riper pears from table along with her. Imogen is in the sewing room by the time she returns, mending one of the castle’s winter tapestries. She sets the wool aside when Gwen offers her the pear.

“I finished the last of the spinning this morning,” Gwen tells her as she eats. “And sent it down to the weavers. The dyers will send the next shipment of wool over in a fortnight or so.”

Imogen grunts in acknowledgement. She’s a fast and voracious eater, but still careful enough to duck outside to throw the core away and wash her hands of the residue of fruit. “It’s really coming, isn’t it?” she asks absently when she gets back, drying her hands on the bottom of her skirt before starting on her mending again. “Fall.”

“It always does,” Gwen says. She’s finished with all of the embroidery on her panels. She only needs someone to make the dress for now. “It’s been a year now, hasn’t it?”

Imogen nods. “I still miss her.” 

Gwen’s fingers fumble on her needle as she tries to thread it. She only wanted to make conversation. She’s never quite forgotten why Imogen started to work in the castle, but it hadn't occurred to her then, what the end of Imogen's first year as a seamstress truly means.

“I’m sorry,” Gwen manages.

“Why are you sorry? It wasn’t your fault.”

Gwen rises from her seat and goes to stand next to Imogen, setting a light hand on her shoulder. Imogen leans into it, and together, they look out at the trees surrounding the citadel, which are just beginning to don their yearly gilt. 

“She loved fall,” Imogen says thinly. “It’ll be her name-day, soon. It happened. On her name-day.”

“You can—take the day off,” Gwen tells her. “If you want to. The whole sennight, if you need, spend it with Judith and the rest of your family—”

“No,” Imogen cuts her off before she can finish. “I’d lose more of my mind staying at home than I would by working here. I need to keep busy.” She turns around and smiles weakly at Gwen. “It doesn’t hurt as much anymore. It’s been a year. I can remember the happier parts now.”

After Uther killed her father, Gwen couldn’t walk in the city without being maddened by grief. With every reminder of him she had to learn all over again the fact of his absence. He wouldn’t be in the forge anymore; he would never eat dinner with her again and tease her for her cooking, or give her colorful fabric to mend the bottoms of her kirtles. He was gone—one day, he was, and the next, he wasn't. There was an emptiness where he should have been, where she still held in her heart that he should be, and it was impossible to comprehend the shape of his absence. Her anger at his death was the only thing she could understand in those days. It wasn’t until time had dulled the edges of her grief and turned her father to a story that she could remember past her hurt—that she could think of forge-bellows and anvils and mended skirts, walk past the smithy in the lower town again, without having to relearn his passing.

She only knows her mother through her knife and through her father’s tales of Ammaline, how clever she was at the forge, how skilled her eye used to be. She now remembers her father the same way—through stories, through objects. He lives on in the things the forge creates, in the crossroads and the storefronts. It is the only way she can continue going through her days.

“You can tell me about her, if you want,” Gwen offers. 

Imogen doesn’t reply. She returns to her neat stitches along the tears of the tapestry, methodically reinforcing their edges before mending them. Gwen holds up one of her finished silk panels to her own arm, checking for the evenness of the seam down to the wrist. The panels were cut to fit Morgana, but there is enough seam allowance around all of the pieces for the dress to be sewn for any woman in the castle or the lower town. 

“She was a far better seamstress than I,” Imogen says at last. “Four years older. So much kinder.”

Already, Gwen can hear the story building in Imogen’s reminiscence. It is how they all learn to live again after grief. “What’s her name?” Gwen asks.

“Estelle.” Imogen laughs suddenly, a half-choked sound. “Her name was—her name is—Estelle.”

Imogen tells Gwen a little more about her sister as the afternoon wears on. Estelle had dreamt, ever since Imogen could remember, of working at the castle. She adored the white stone and the tapestries, and the lords and ladies who came to the court. She was a good painter and a horrible singer, and she loved listening to Imogen sing in the evenings. Her favorite song had been about an elfin knight and a queen, and Imogen sings a bit of it as the sun dips low in the sky and stains the clouds with red.

Two days afterwards, the heat flares again, heavy enough to suffocate, and Imogen spends the whole day sewing furiously in complete silence. Her shoulders stiffen whenever Gwen starts talking or singing, so Gwen stays quiet as well. She slips down to the kitchens and bargains with Hilda for some of the venison pies and currant compote meant for the high table. When it comes time for supper, she returns to the sewing room and presses a bundle of food into Imogen’s hands. Judith is waiting outside the servants’ entrance when Gwen emerges, leading Imogen out from the castle with a hand on her shoulder.

“Thank you, my lady,” Judith says, draping one arm around Imogen’s waist to support her. Imogen blinks at her. When she finally recognizes her lover, she sags into Judith’s hold, pressing her face into her neck, unmindful of the sweat and leather dye streaking across her throat and down to her collar.

“I am no lady,” Gwen says, as she always has. “Just make sure she—isn’t alone.”

Judith nods, brows furrowed as she looks down at the woman in her arms. “I remember last year. When Estelle was murdered—we were sure that we would lose her, too.” She brings up her hand to stroke Imogen’s back. “She was—living off her anger, for those first months. I didn’t know what would happen when that anger ran out. I didn’t want to know.”

“I’m right here, you know,” Imogen snaps, not lifting her head from Judith’s shoulder. “I’m still angry, and I still blame you for not letting me run the bastard through.”

“And the bastard is dead now,” Judith murmurs. “And you aren’t. So I will take all the blame in the world.”

Bidding them to have a good evening seems too tasteless a ritual of farewell for the day. In its stead, Gwen ducks her head and tells Judith, “I’ll see you two soon.”

Judith nods and starts to steer Imogen in the direction of the lower town. “Have a good night, my lady,” she says, and the title as she says it is lighter now, somehow fonder.

Gwen goes back into the castle. She still has one of the pies Hilda gave her, wrapped in her kerchief to keep the midges away. The corridor in front of Gaius’ chambers is shadowed and stifling as she walks through, pausing in front of the door to the apothecary’s main room. When she opens it, Kara is sitting at the table alone, picking at a bowl of leftover porridge. Merlin and Gaius must be eating supper in the kitchens. It had taken them near a month to trust her enough to let her stay in the rooms alone. 

“Aren’t you ever going to stop trying?” Kara demands when Gwen enters. “Don’t you get tired of it?”

“Very much so,” Gwen admits, “but that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop.” She sets the little bundle on the table next to Kara and unwraps it. “It’s good. Venison pie, with suet and pepper and thyme. You should try it.”

Kara glares at Gwen with a mullish expression. Without breaking her stare, she tears off a corner of the hand pie, cramming the whole piece into her mouth and chewing. “It’s good,” she sneers. “I don’t want it.”

Gwen shrugs and starts eating the remaining part herself. The pastry is flaky from all the suet in it, and the meat filling is sweet, honey-laced, and rich with pepper and clove. “There’s spice cake, too,” she offers. “And currant compote, and cider. The first of the fall.”

“I don’t want to eat any of the tyrant’s food.”

Gwen nods. “Of course. But this isn’t the king’s food—it’s food that the cook made, and her apprentices, and the cook is a woman named Hilda whose sons are like you, and she lets the girls who have magic practice in her kitchen. Don’t insult them by calling this the king’s food,” she says, but with no censure. She brushes the crumbs from her kerchief and folds it back up. “You are not alone, Kara. This castle is more than the king’s law.”

Kara stares at her, head cocked like a spring bird’s. The bags under her eyes are bruise-dark against the paleness of her skin. “Will you be back tomorrow?” she asks.

Gwen nods. “You know I will.”

“I want the cake,” the girl announces, and she turns back to her porridge without another word. A smile pulls at the corners of Gwen’s mouth as she leaves the room.

Food and drink in the castle change with the seasons. Kara’s cake is only made when the weather begins to turn; Hilda soaks cloves and cinnamon in strong liqueur to add to the batter, and sprinkles in black pepper as well, an extravagant touch meant only for the king’s table. The stews become heartier, the pies more sturdy and filling. The fresh berries are slowly replaced with apples and pears and plums, half of which are dried for the winter ahead. As the summer’s heat fades, the castle’s denizens drink more mead and cider to warm their bellies, and wine watered only slightly becomes the standard for council meetings. 

A young page named Elis is serving wine in the council when Gwen next attends. He is so young that he doesn’t remember the days when Gwen was no more than a chambermaid, one in a never-ending regiment of interchangeable bodies and hands who kept the castle in order without the nobility ever paying heed. The boy pulls out a chair for her, going red with embarrassment when she demurs. 

“Wine, my lady?” Elis thrusts a cup at her.

She takes the wine without protest, earnestly thanking him. He bows before hurrying away to serve the lords. Gwen remembers her first day serving in the council room. She dropped a cup and thought she would be beaten for it.

Arthur nods absently at Elis as he sets a cup of wine at his elbow. Agravaine dismisses the page with a flick of his hand, and he all but flees to the edge of the room, holding the wine pitcher with white-knuckled hands. The council is convened.

The lords are meeting today about a potential alliance with Suffolk and the Fenlands. The Fen is an intractable region of marshes and forests; her people are fierce and just, and her king and queen are—as of yet—unallied in the war. Gwen glances back at Elis as two of the councilors begin to argue over the value of trading part of Camelot’s supply of grain in return for aid when the war comes to Sigelai; there had been a summer of harsh crop blight in the marshlands, and none of their wheat had grown. By the time the initial debate winds down, Elis’ arms have begun to tremble from the weight of the wine and how desperately he is grasping at the pitcher. She steps back to the wall where he stands and gestures for the pitcher, and he almost falls over in his haste to hand it to her. She tops up her cup but keeps hold of the pitcher afterwards, easily hefting it in one hand. Elis’ eyes go wide, and she winks at him. A big, toothy grin breaks across his face, and he inches over to stand a little closer to her, letting his arms hang freely at his sides.

The whole council proceeds, more or less in order. Agravaine is the loudest of the objectors to forming an alliance with the Fenlands. Every word that comes out of his mouth is about Camelot’s pride, Camelot’s standing—the Fens are inhabited by brigands and face-painted peasants, and Camelot should not lower herself through an alliance with that kingdom; Camelot needs to keep her grain and apples and wool for herself, should it come to a siege on the citadel; Camelot has the strength to defend Sigelai herself when the battle comes. Camelot is already superlative—the strongest, the mightiest, the richest. She should not have to go begging for allies. 

The lord has always been a good speaker, and Gwen can see the rest of the councilors turn to him in a wave. Arthur’s arms are crossed tightly across his chest. He can’t afford to speak up against his uncle now—it would seem too much like he is envious of Agravaine’s standing rather than worried about his intent.

Agravaine’s speech comes to a close, and he ends it by turning to Arthur and asking, “What say you, your majesty?”

Arthur unclenches his jaw with visible effort. He stares at Agravaine without speaking for a long moment before starting to answer, and Gwen takes a step forward, unsure of what she can do but knowing that she has to do something—

—but before she can reach him, the door to the council chamber clangs open. A man in a messenger’s livery rushes through, still breathing hard from his rush to the castle. Agravaine rises from his seat, turning hard eyes towards the intruder. “What is the meaning of this?”

The messenger ignores the lord. “My king,” he shouts, stumbling to a halt in front of the table and bowing. “Your majesty—I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

Arthur gestures for the man to rise. “What is it?” he asks. His voice is firm and commanding, cutting across his uncle’s splutters.

The man drops to a kneel, still gasping for breath. “I’m sorry, your majesty,” he pants. “Sigelai has fallen.”

Morgana is sitting on the ground when Gwen arrives in their world of white, her face upturned to the no-sky. Her breeches are dark, and her overtunic bears the crow of her sigil. Around her arm is tied a band in Sigelai’s colors, deep bronze and sky blue. She is not in armor. She doesn’t have to be.

“You listened to me,” Gwen says.

Morgana turns to look at her. “So I did.”

Sigelai surrendered. Morgana and her allies lost none, and Camelot lost none as well. Morgana had walked into the town, alone, with a pennant in her hand. She had promised asylum for their magic users and cures for their blighted fields, and now the crow-blazoned black flies from the top of Sigelai’s watchtower. The messenger was one of the precious few who kept their allegiance to Camelot after the surrender. Morgana promised them three dawns of reprieve before they either left the town or answered her question of loyalty differently.

“I thought about what you said—about how those who fight in the names of others so often cannot choose.” Her eyes are light-sheened even now, creasing with her smile. “Who will you choose when the time comes, Gwen?”

“Camelot is my home.” Gwen’s declaration is steady, as it always is. “I am loyal to my kingdom.”

“You are loyal to what you believe. The same as all of us.” Morgana pats the groundless space next to her. “Think about what they will do to you, if they find out that you were consorting with me. If they ever discover that you were the one who told me to consider mercy—not for compassion’s sake, but for victory’s.”

Gwen takes a step back, squaring her jaw. “I told you to consider mercy for the sake of justice, not for anyone’s victory,” she says hotly. “And if victory is what you gleaned from what I said, you never listened to me at all.”

“Peace, my lady, I know what you meant,” Morgana says indulgently. It makes Gwen want to grind her teeth. "You helped me to remember, Gwen—these are my people, and my lands. I will protect them. There is so much I can cure that your kingdom won’t: crop blight in the Fenlands, flooded roads along the Southron towns, broken bridges in Anglia. Like you said, they will come flocking.” She inspects the token around her arm. “Morgause hates you now. I told her it was your idea."

“I am more than content with Morgause hating me.”

“Careful, Gwen,” Morgana says with a small and triumphant smile. “You sound jealous.”

“There’s little to be jealous of. She made you hard, Morgana. She made you cruel.”

“So she did.” Morgana’s grin grows wider. “And what would you have made me, Gwen? Gentle? Caring?” She leans forward, propping her elbows on her knees and peering up at Gwen with a mocking demureness. “Kind?” She doesn’t give Gwen the time to answer. “Because that is what you want, isn’t it? To have me forget the anger that has kept me sane and come crawling back to your beloved Camelot and live powerless within that castle. Once more at your side, as though I had never left. To have me be kind again.”

“I want you to be _happy_.” The words tumble from her as she falls to her knees, needing to see Morgana’s eyes from as close as she can, and she reaches, and reaches, but she never reaches her. “No less righteous. No less bold. Damn it all, Morgana, I don’t want anything beyond that—I want you to be happy, I want there to be no more death and no more destruction, I want you and everyone else in the kingdom to live without fear and without grief—”

She breaks off, desperate for something to hold onto. “What else do you want me to say?” she whispers. “Morgana—what else do you want from me?”

“I want the truth from you. And now I know—you also want to rule.” Morgana watches Gwen, a smile tugging at her lips. “Such lofty ambitions, my lady.”

"I am no lady," Gwen snarls. She has witnessed the toll of noble ambition. She will have no part in it.

"You are no lady, but don't you still want to change things, Gwen?" Morgana presses. "To make a difference? To see your people live without fear and without grief?" Gwen flinches at her own declaration, parroted back to her with a taunting lilt. Morgana leans in and finishes, "What is that if not desire?"

They are so close that Morgana should be able to feel Gwen’s skin-heat, and Morgana’s lips should be brushing against Gwen’s. Her breath comes hard and fast, like she has just run through all the darkling woods, and Gwen wants. She wants to rail at Morgana for the futility of it all, and to rage and rend the useless world with her fingernails. And she wants Morgana—to feel the heat inside her mouth and the slickness of her teeth. The bite of Morgana’s nails on her shoulders, and the give of Morgana’s thighs under her palms. Gwen can no longer deny it. She wants. 

“You are angry. And you want the power to make things right.” Morgana surveys Gwen’s face with the same greed Gwen can feel thrumming in her veins. "You want a throne, my lady. That is where all noble plans lead." 

Morgana's words are barely loud enough to travel the meager distance between them when she says, “Run away with me.”

“No.” The denial passes Gwen's lips as a slow exhalation.

There is only the barest sliver of air separating them now—they are the closest they can be without their shared fantasy breaking into mist. Gwen leans forward, pushing Morgana back to recline on her elbows without even a touch. The distance is maddening, the power heady. Gwen braces herself over her, looking down at the flush spreading over her cheeks with something like avarice. 

“One of these days, you will have to admit to your ambitions.” Morgana’s eyes never leave Gwen’s. They burn, gold and glinting. “You will have to pick a side. And I would raise you high. I would make you queen.”

“No,” Gwen says again, and she laughs, staring raptly at each flicker of Morgana’s pupils. 

Morgana laughs too. “Camelot will not contain you. Not with that light behind your eyes.” Her breath is coming hard, and Gwen tracks the rise and fall of her chest, the movement of her throat as she swallows. “You and I are not so different, Gwen.”

Gwen can’t deny her. Not now. “Tell me what it was like,” she commands lowly, ghosting her hand over Morgana’s shoulder, down her arm, a hair’s breadth away from touch. “When you first let your anger free.” 

Morgana licks her lips. There is a gleam of wet left behind from her tongue. Her voice is rough when she starts, “It was like waking up after a long sleep and feeling the dawn on your face.” She lowers herself down to lie on the white of the ground, and Gwen follows her, mouth just hovering over her pulse, where her heartbeat jumps fast. She thinks fleetingly that she can feel the tendons of her throat beneath her teeth. “It was like the first breath of autumn after the driest of summers.” Morgana is shaking underneath her. Gwen skims her mouth over the arch of her neck, imagining the salt of her skin on her tongue. “Or the spring sun breaking after the dead of winter.”

“What about now?” Gwen lifts her head. “Do you still feel that sun?”

Morgana grins with all the hunger in her. “Always.”

Gwen’s hand falls to Morgana’s face, fingers desperately digging into the emptiness that should be the curve beneath her jaw, tracing over her cheek, the indent of her ear. “Touch yourself,” she says. “Since I can’t.” She is half-braced and half-draped over her, trembling from the force of holding them apart. “Follow me, Morgana.”

Morgana’s hand comes up, sliding along her neck, her jaw, mirroring the path of Gwen’s fingers. She gasps, eyes fluttering shut, pushing into her own hand like she craves the touch, and the sound punches Gwen’s breath out from her lungs.

“Look at me,” Gwen says, and Morgana’s eyes fly open. They are brighter than Gwen can bear. She never wants to look away. Their breath comes heavy in the space between them, and Gwen hovers her mouth over Morgana’s in an open kiss. “Follow me,” she murmurs into the part of her lips. “Morgana—do it—”

Morgana blinks once, twice, before her lips part in understanding. Gwen pulls back only enough to watch as Morgana brings her other hand to her mouth, trailing her fingertips over her cupid’s bow. She presses in with two of her fingers, hard enough to indent the fullness of her lower lip, marking the skin with her nails, near half as hard as Gwen wants to bite and pull. Her fingers slip past her lips, and Gwen sees the glint of her teeth for a moment before Morgana starts to suck on her own fingers, thrusting them deep into her mouth, up to her knuckles. They shine every time she pulls them out, the carmine from her lips smeared all over her knuckles, her nails, the thin skin between her fingers. Gwen’s breathing is too loud in her ears. A piercing, sweet heat spreads through her and settles in the pit of her belly, and she closes her eyes, overcome at the sight of her.

“No.” Morgana’s voice is low and hoarse. “Look at me, my lady.”

Gwen forces her eyes open. Morgana’s face is red from her blush and the carmine smeared over her mouth and chin. There is a thread of spit hanging between her fingers and her lips, and Gwen watches as she drags her palm over her mouth and scrapes away the red she had left on her skin with her teeth. She licks at her fingertips almost absently, pressing her lips in light butterfly-kisses to her knuckles, her gaze fixed on Gwen’s mouth. Her clean hand strokes down the column of her neck, trailing over the hollow of her throat before undoing the ties of her tunic. 

“What would you do now, Gwen?” Morgana stares at Gwen with heavy-lidded eyes shimmering in their depths. “Tell me, so I can follow.”

There is a litany of things Gwen wants, so many that she cannot pick one to say. Morgana is lying beneath her, the top of her tunic falling open over her chest, her skin pale against the black, sweat beading on the swell of her breasts, and it is all she can do not to bend down and press her face to her. Morgana doesn’t wait for her to answer. She doesn’t have to. She runs her hand down her sternum and licks her sweat from her fingers, never breaking Gwen’s gaze. Her hand slips inside of her open tunic, cupping her breast. Her breath hitches when she pinches at her nipple, her red blush now spreading down her neck and over her chest.

Gwen drags the words out of her. "Tell me how it feels."

"Good," Morgana rasps. "It'd be—one hell of a lot better—if you were actually doing it."

Gwen laughs, throwing her head back from the force of it. "I wish," she says, bending down again, opening her mouth over Morgana's and licking, and Morgana follows, pushing her fingers past her teeth again.

Morgana toys with the hem of her tunic, drawing it up high enough to reveal the softness of her stomach and the indent of her navel. A high, muffled noise is wrenched from her as she starts to rub between her legs, over the fabric of her breeches, and Gwen groans, clenching her hand to keep from touching herself.

“Do it,” Morgana says in a growl. She braces her feet on the ground, arching into the motion of her hand. “Do it,” she chants, “do it—”

Gwen jolts awake with a gasp. 

Her room is dark. She is alone. Her breathing comes heaving, and her sheets are tangled at the bottom of her pallet. She is warm and clammy all over, and there is an insistent, pulling ache between her legs. All she can think of is Morgana—Morgana’s eyes, hazy and glittering, and the red flush that had crept down her neck and chest, richer than carmine. Gwen tries to calm her breathing as she lies in bed, staring up at the beams of her low ceiling and willing the pressure away, but she realizes just as quickly that she’s rubbing her thighs together, and the ache only builds and builds. Morgana’s voice ricochets around her thoughts— _do it, do it, tell me so I can follow_ , and Gwen shudders from the remembered heat of them. She hikes her shift to her waist and reaches down, hissing at the scrape of her calluses against her tender skin.

She's already wet from the dream. Her head thumps back against her pallet as she pushes two fingers into herself, dragging them against her clit every time she twists them in and out. She thinks of—Morgana. Who else? Morgana’s fingers, red with carmine and spit-slick. Morgana’s mouth. Her hand moves faster, and she squeezes her eyes shut, panting as the pressure grows sharp and hot. She can see her even now. Her eyes. Her arched neck. The sounds she had made. She can almost feel her—greedy hands, scraping nails, hot and giving. Taste her in the back of her throat. The taste of her tongue, her skin, her sweat—the taste of her hunger, the spread of her legs, how she would taste pink and flushed all over—

Gwen comes in a rush, gritting her teeth to muffle her frustrated groan.

_Ygraine. Ygraine. Ygraine. I love you. I have damned us all for you._

_You kiss me, and I kiss you back, chasing the sweetness of your mouth. I run my fingers through the unbridled gold of your hair and savor it. I have given up trying to pretend that I have any strength when faced with you. I fall asleep at your side, and all I do is dream of death._

No future is ever set _, you tell me._ You were the one who taught me that.

_And there are times when I wish I had not—but then you would have lived small and without wanting anything more. And a life without want is no life at all._


	8. Fire in the Wind

“First Sigelai, now Linford.” Arthur taps at the parchment with his reed, slashing through the towns with little splatters of red ink. “We have our own people fighting alongside the sorceress and her mercenaries.”

“Then they are hardly our people anymore, are they?” Agravaine sets troop markers next to the towns. “You must quash the rebellion while you still can. You cannot afford for this to set a precedent.”

There is a murmur of agreement from the other lords in the chamber. Gwen exchanges a look with Merlin, who grimaces from where he is standing next to Arthur's elbow, wine pitcher in hand. Gwen is back to serving drink in the meetings; a few of the men had complained to Agravaine about her presence as a witness, and the lord had in turn complained to Arthur. The king apologized profusely to her for it, but he still wanted her in the council. And so she now moves forward and refills Agravaine’s cup with the best wine the kitchens have to offer, resolutely ignoring the satisfaction which radiates from him when she bows demurely and retreats to the wall. Arthur doesn’t trust his uncle as he once had. It is only a matter of time before he is gone.

“Our knights are stretched thin as is, uncle,” Arthur says stiffly, pulling the tokens back to the side. Each colored stone stands in for fifty men’s lives, and the council shuffles them around like they are worth nothing. “We should shift our focus to the eastern front. The Fenlands—”

“What have I said about the Fens, Arthur?” Agravaine demands. “They have nothing to offer us, it would be useless to come to them for aid—”

“How do you expect us to have enough men to fight a war on both sides, then?” Arthur goes to scrub his fingers through his hair but pauses when his fingertips brush against his circlet. His hands fall back to the table and stay there, carefully still. “They need our grain. We need their soldiers. Lord Agravaine, Camelot cannot stand alone—”

“Arthur,” Agravaine starts, so fond and so kind. “My king,” he corrects himself, leaning towards his nephew. “Surely—I know, my king, that you are motivated by pity for the people in the surrounding kingdoms, but surely you don’t intend to demean your own kingdom so? You must have faith in us, sire.”

One of the older lords on the council leans over to whisper to the man to his right, both of them appraising Arthur like he is a boar caught in a steel trap. “The Fenlands are nothing to us, but Sigelai and Linford were among the first of the villages your father brought under Camelot’s rule, my lord,” one of them says.

“You should not let our territory go over to the sorceress so easily.”

“And as for the other towns—”

“Astolat was where your lady mother summered in the first years of her reign,” Agravaine jumped in. Arthur regards them with shuttered eyes—he knows he is the boar.

“Ismere was the seat of the Lord Gorlois, we cannot abandon our old allies—”

“—and Helva was ever favored by your blessed father—”

“—their wheat and wool provide gold for your coffers, my king, you cannot afford to let them go—”

"This is nonsense," Gwen snaps.

The room falls silent, heads swivelling around to her. Merlin gestures frantically for her to stop, but Gwen pays him no heed. She sets her pitcher on the council table with a clatter, hard enough to slosh some of the wine over the side. “All the revenue the crown takes from the border towns goes into maintaining the roads in the kingdom. The coffers you are thinking of are your own, my Lord Firmin. You fear for your estate.”

The lord goes red, spluttering and indignant. Gwen stares at him dispassionately. She has heard stories about what he did at Uther’s side, in the first years of the Purges—the butcher’s bloody right hand, who took his estate with sword and scythe from the Druids who used to live at the bend of the river. They were among the first to offer Camelot aid back when the kingdom was small and struggling, and now they are gone, driven to live at the peripheries of what they had raised. Firmin had killed hundreds of them. He should at least be better at this than he is.

“Guards,” the lord sitting next to Firmin snaps, “escort the maid from this chamber.” 

He looks at her, his expression cold and blank as river stones. She has heard stories of him as well, from well before Arthur’s reign—Lord Dimmond, who beheaded more than Uther did, and buried all the unnamed bodies in one mass grave. He too had his estate built on bones, and Uther extolled him for it. His voice grates on her ears now, “Her insolence is a distraction from our affairs of state, and I will not stand for it—”

Leon is on guard duty today. He starts to move in her direction, eyes lowered in a quiet plea of apology. She glares at him and holds out one hand in warning. The knight hesitates, turning to Arthur, who is staring at them all with wide and wearied eyes. For a moment, all Gwen can hear is her heartbeat.

"Stand down, Sir Leon," the king says at last, and Leon at least still obeys him. Arthur's face is carefully neutral when he announces, "Guinevere—you may speak."

"Thank you, sire." Gwen reaches across the table, pushing tokens around on the map before any of the men can react. "The front has already moved to the Fens. If you don't act quickly, the sorceress will seize those towns as well, and then Camelot will be surrounded entirely." They aren't listening to her. That much is clear. They only see the patches on her skirt and her rough hands—but she will be damned if she doesn't try to make them hear her. "My lords, you are already at war," she says, setting down one final token at Kesteven. "You cannot afford to waste troops and supplies trying to retake territory that has already been conquered. The Fenlands call for aid and offer their own soldiers in return. If you are not compelled by compassion to your own people, can you at least understand logic?"

Agravaine starts chuckling. His face, when he turns to survey her, is kindly and indulgent. She wants to claw at it until the truth comes out. "You see, my lords?" He waves his hand at her, the gem on his signet glinting in the light. "Our king is a noble man. His nobleness is so inspiring that even chambermaids harbor lofty aspirations of being councillors. It is very sweet, my dear,” he says, turning to her, “that you think you can help us, but save your ideas bright for where they belong. I’m sure his majesty will appreciate them in his chambers.”

Gwen bares all her teeth at the lord in a smile and has the pleasure of seeing him shrink away from her, taken aback. But he catches himself, in a split moment’s notice, and the kindness flows and settles over him like an oil spill. Silence once again stretches out over the room, taut enough to burst at the drop of a needle.

“This council meeting is ended,” Arthur announces abruptly. “You are dismissed, my lords.”

“Your majesty—”

“You are dismissed, Lord Firmin,” the king repeats.

The lords scurry and scatter, like leaves in the wind. Agravaine remains in his seat. He finishes his wine and sets down his cup precisely on the table, tapping his finger against the stem and locking his eyes on Gwen’s. Gwen moves to stand next to Arthur, taking the pitcher with her.

“You too, Lord Agravaine.” Arthur sits stiff-backed in his chair. He doesn’t look at his uncle.

“Arthur—” the lord sighs. “I am looking out for you. You are too young; you don’t know what it is like to rule. There will always be people who are planning to take advantage of you—”

“People like you, you mean.”

Agravaine pauses mid-word. Arthur doesn’t lift his gaze from the table. “You are dismissed,” is all he says.

“My king—”

“Now, Agravaine,” Arthur barks.

The lord regards his nephew for a long while. When he finally rises to depart, his face is blank as a mask, devoid of even his kind affability. Arthur waits for the door to slam shut behind him before dismissing the knights standing guard as well. They file out, armor creaking. It is not until the room is empty save for the three of them that Arthur turns to Gwen.

“Do you have any idea how weak you made me look?” he bites out, his every word brittle with anger.

Gwen meets his fury head-on. “There are only two reasons for this gods-damned council to even exist—to support your people, or to support you,” she says. “And they weren't doing either of those. Someone needed to say something. And you couldn’t.”

“I could.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Weakness. It is among the worst traits for nobility to see in their king, second only perhaps to compassion. Gwen’s question is as good as an accusation, but she feels no victory as Arthur flinches back. Merlin sets his hands on the king's shoulders, anchoring him.

“For all you say that my uncle is taking advantage of me—” Arthur breaks off. Gwen has known him as a little boy and a proud prince and a king whose head bears all the burdens of a kingdom. She's never seen him so weighed down with tiredness before. He cannot even look at her when he says thinly, “At least you’re doing it for the right reasons.”

She sets her hand over his. “Arthur—” she starts.

He pulls his hand away, like her touch had wounded him. “Not now, Gwen. Please.” He pulls the main map closer to the three of them. “Now—I need to figure out what to do. Without the vultures flocking around me.”

“Trying to take back Ismere is stupid,” Merlin pipes up promptly, flicking two tokens to the side.

“Your talent for stating the obvious is stunning, Merlin,” Arthur says, with no malice. He spares a smile for Merlin. “Now try to come up with something useful.”

Merlin rolls his eyes where Arthur can see, and Arthur squeezes the hand on his shoulder before they all turn to the map.

“Kesteven,” Arthur announces. “That’s where the next battle will be.”

Gwen picks up a reed pen, hovering it over the town. It is a small seat at the border of the Fens, the summer holding of Alcman and Sada. All of Camelot’s caravans pass through the border there before they proceed into Anglia.

“It seems like she’s trying to forge alliances, town by town.” Gwen tries to remember what Morgana had said in her dreams. She had talked about crop blight in the Fenlands. “Going to villages with a lot of magic-users, or who have suffered from bad winters or floods. Offering them amnesty and aid, in return for their support against Camelot.”

Arthur sighs, slumping back in his chair. “It’s the least honorable sort of war,” he mutters. “One that doesn’t involve weapons.”

“Or the most honorable,” Merlin counters. “One that doesn’t involve killing people.”

It is somehow comforting, to know that he of all people can still think that. Gwen leans down, surveying the other border towns. “Arthur—every village on Camelot’s border swore loyalty to the crown after Uther’s conquest, but loyalty must be reciprocated. Some of them were luckier than others. Ismere and Helva are border towns, but they housed lords. We’ve directly traded with Astolat since before you came of age. But some of these villages—” she marks them with neat dots of black, “—they’ve never even seen Uther in person, much less you. They pay tribute to a castle they have never even seen, knowing that the only thing that could draw their king’s attention is if they are late on their taxes or if there’s a rumor that they’re harboring magic users. And then the knights come, and not to aid them.”

Arthur looks stricken. “Gwen, I’m not—”

“You mean them no cruelty, but they don’t know that.” Gwen sets a single token on the map next to Kesteven. Fifty men deployed. She wonders what the heaviness of it would be like, if she could actually do such a thing—if the weight of life in her hands would ever grow any lighter. “Send an embassy here, and offer them a portion of our reserves. They might not cede directly to Morgana if you do.”

“The lords won’t agree to that.”

“Kesteven is still partially under Camelot’s jurisdiction. Even your councillors have to realize that we can’t afford to let the town fall, if we still want to have any chance in the war. If Morgana controls the waterways in the Fens, we won’t be able to trade with Anglia.”

Arthur jabs at the parchment with his pe. “I don’t want anyone else to die,” he whispers. “I don’t—why does it have to be trade, or revenue, or territory? I just don’t want anyone to _die_ —”

Kill under Morgana, or be killed under the king’s law. Such is the rhythm of their monstrous world. “I know,” Gwen murmurs. “Gods above, Arthur, I know.” 

They stand at the table and stare down at their shattered land and stone soldiers, and none of them have any words left to say.

Gwen doesn’t dream of Morgana every night. Some of her dreams are normal ones, nonsensical sequences of her running through reeds or duelling under firelight or being bitten by snakes with metal scales and too many teeth. She also sometimes dreams in prophecy, but small ones: one of Hilda’s new apprentices adding too much salt to the stew one night and too little the next; one of the horses in the stables breaking his own enclosure in a fit of temper at how the stablehand had refused to change out his hay, other mundanities of castle life. None more of her inspired dreams are about death—at least, none yet. Her other dreams are bloody, but her prophecies are blessedly small.

“We should tell them to dye more of the wool in burgundy,” Gwen tells Imogen one day as they spin thread in the sewing room.

Imogen raises her eyebrow. Her hands, halfway through a skein of lilac wool, do not falter. “You of all people,” she says. “Objecting to purple. Should I expect the sun to be rising in the west next?”

“I don’t like purple that much,” Gwen protests. Imogen directs a pointed gaze at her lavender kirtle and makes no further comment. Gwen rolls her eyes. “So maybe I do. But burgundy is going to be popular this winter. Princess Mithian'll order a hunting cape and a kirtle from dark red wool.”

Imogen’s brow scrunches. “Princess—which lady is she?”

“Mithian. From Nemeth. She’s good with a bow. A couple years ago, she came under a betrothal, but she’s co-regent with her father now. She’ll arrive—” —at the first snowfall, Gwen realizes, which is months away, and there is no way she should know that, so she finishes by saying, “—sometime in winter. Or so I’ve heard.”

“I see.” Imogen snorts. “I haven’t the faintest idea how you do it; you’re always two steps ahead of the rest of the rumor mill.”

Gwen twists more wool onto the leader of her main thread. If there is anyone whom Gwen should tell about her magic, it would be Imogen, who told her so openly and so easily. But old patterns of secrecy are difficult to vanquish, no matter how strange and queasy it feels to abide by them. “It’s just practice,” she says. 

Imogen accepts her answer easily, and they both keep spinning.

Merlin concludes that her magic is latent, after a sennight of sneaking magic lessons in Morgana’s antechamber. He has books and strategies aplenty and teaches her how to say the syllables meant to channel the sparks at her fingertips with meticulous care, but none of the spells written down in his creaky old tomes make flames ignite from her fingers or her vase of flowers bloom any further in her hands. She shouts for the candles to come alive until the sound stops feeling real in her mouth, but to no avail.

“You do it like it's nothing,” she grouses, watching him light all the candles around them with a snap of his fingers.

Merlin frowns, still paging through one of his stack of books. “I don’t get it,” he confesses, poring over the crabbed text on a page so closely that his nose nearly touches the parchment. “Prophecy is a strong magic. These are spells meant for children, you should be able to—”

Gwen feels an indignant pout pulling at her face. “You’re teaching me children’s spells?”

“You’ve just started learning about your magic!” Merlin protests. “And if you can’t do these, then you definitely won’t be able to do any more complicated spellwork.”

Gwen pokes at a candle with no little ill-will. It has been a long time since she has done anything without practice, with such lack of skill. “Did you do this?” she asks. “Practice lighting candles, back when you were still learning?”

He shakes his head. “When I was two winters old, I felled a tree.” He runs his finger down a chart of spells Gwen can’t quite read yet, still looking for an answer. “I’ve been able to light fires ever since I can remember. I turned winter into spring when I wanted strawberries and my mother said they couldn’t grow in the snow. She used to be—so scared of me. For me, I mean. Scared that someone would see.”

Fear is a corrosive thing—it eats away at homes and kingdoms and leaves nothing behind. Gwen considers Merlin in the glow of the small flames all around them. She sometimes cannot help but think of him as a boy, barely come of age and still wearing his mother's mending, unused to the machinations of the court for all his years here and for all that she now knows. He had nigh-on torn the Valley apart when he duelled with Morgana. 

“How powerful are you, Merlin?” she asks.

He raises his shoulders in a rueful shrug. “I don’t know. I’ve heard—whenever I talk to them, the Druids call me Emrys. And some of the other people I’ve met. They—say things.”

Merlin trails off, muttering under his breath about power channeling and magic latency again. Gwen has to prompt him. “What sort of things?”

“That—” his eyes dart to the side, “—I’m the most powerful sorcerer to ever live.”

Merlin might have given himself to destiny, but Gwen does not believe in any future so set. She believes in fortune, and chance, and the caprice and order of their universe in turns—but now she wonders. Is luck capricious for bringing a child made of magic to Camelot? Or is it merely cruel?

“That’s incredible,” Gwen tells him. Her voice is soft, and it harbors no judgement.

He ducks his head uncomfortably. "Clearly not that incredible, since I can't even teach you to light a candle." He sighs, tossing the last of his books to the side. "Latent magic. It has to be. Instinctual, impossible to control. It'll flare with your emotions, so you have to be careful, but—" he gestures vaguely at the candles. "Things'll just. Go on. You've had it your entire life, you've probably been drawing on it without realizing. Have you ever seen things happening whenever you get angry or something?"

Gwen laughs a little. "Merlin. I'm a servant. You know how it is,” she reminds him. “If something magical happened every time I got angry, either the castle or I would have burned by now."

"That's—fair." He tilts his head to the side for a moment, bird-like in his regard, before blowing out one of the candles burning around them and setting it down in front of her. "Let's try it, though. Focus on something that makes you angry. Or happy. Or sad. Anything. But focus on the feeling, and then think of the candle burning."

The candle is an old one, half-melted, the burnt head of the wick still smoking faintly. It is a fine beeswax candle, the sort Gwen bargained for in the marketplaces for Morgana and the seamstresses to use back when there was still a high lady’s household in the castle. Gwen points at the candle, shaking from the effort of her concentration. She closes her eyes and takes one deep breath, and then another. The room smells of ashes and wood, old abandoned things. When she looks at the candle again, it is still dark and flameless.

“I can’t,” she grits out. “There’s just—there’s nothing happening, Merlin.”

“You can,” he says. “I’ve seen you—”

“ _I can’t_ ,” she says desperately, because her father had to beg her to hold her tongue when she was fifteen and hungry for righteousness, and learning over the years to restrain her words had made her learn to control the lurking forces that compelled them. Because Arthur needs her and Camelot needs her, and she would have been a good wife and a good queen and she will still be a good advisor and a good woman, because that is what they need her to be, no matter how much she resents the simple abnegation of goodness, because once she has only tasted unfettered anger in her dreams of late and it is sweeter than anything she has eaten in her waking hours, because she hates how Arthur cannot free himself from Uther’s hate and how Morgana cannot free herself from Uther’s cruelty, and how her people are dying day by day for a futile war none of them believe in anymore, and how she loves, and grieves, and hates, and wants—

The candles all flare, like the bright edge of day before the sun goes dark in an eclipse, and then the wooden flooring around them catches fire. The flame pools and spreads, snapping as it seeps towards the drapery surrounding them, and Merlin scrambles to extinguish the fire with a shout, leaving behind only acrid smoke. He stares at her like he can’t recognize her, and she tears her eyes from his to look down at her hand like it is something she does not know.

“We shouldn't be doing this anymore,” Merlin says, his face going blank even of worry. He hurries off to his own rooms with barely so much as a goodbye, leaving Gwen behind in the white-shrouded rooms. 

Hadn’t he just told her that she should do it?

"I nearly burned down your room today," she tells Morgana that night. 

Morgana laughs. She is in leather armor, the sort she could wear during both skirmishes and ceremony. There is a cloak wrapped around her shoulders, gray and mist-thin, and her hair is loose, hanging about her head in waves. The battle is not yet coming. “Why did you stop?” she asks cheerily. “You would’ve made my job a lot easier.”

Gwen drops down onto the white no-ground to sit next to her, looping her arms over her knees and glaring at Morgana. She is wearing breeches in the dream, and a knee-length kirtle with hems patched and patched again, clothing she has not worn since she last remembered being so angry. Morgana inches closer, crumpling her cloak underneath her. “What were you doing, waving around torches in my rooms?” she asks. She doesn’t remind Gwen again that she will one day have to choose a side. She doesn’t have to, or she doesn’t want to, and Gwen cannot tell which one she would resent more.

“Merlin was trying to teach me magic.” The words pass Gwen’s lips with an ease and comfort she hasn't found in waking conversation for a long time. She cannot forget that Morgana is now Camelot’s enemy, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to remember why she should care.

“Merlin?” Morgana says the name lightly—carefully so. “Is he now deigning to help other sorcerers? I thought for sure he would be throwing you to my brother’s justice by now.”

“He feels guilty, Morgana.” Gwen brushes her fingers against the edge of her cloak. “And he doesn’t want me to turn against Camelot—”

“—as I turned against Camelot,” Morgana completes her thought.

Gwen nods. They’re all afraid of it—Arthur, that she would betray him as his sister did; Merlin, that she would turn against the king as Morgana had. It was fear she had seen in Merlin’s face, before it all got swept away under the mask they have both taught themselves to don. She imagines living out her growing years surrounded by such fear in the faces of those all about her. She would go mad. Madness is the name they always give to the things they fear. She would become what she saw reflected in their eyes. She would have no choice.

“Have you already forgiven him?” Morgana asks idly. “For what he’s done to me?”

“I understand why he did what he did. Just as I understand why you've done the things you have.” Gwen twists her mouth in a smile. “But I still resent you both. Immensely.”

Morgana is also grinning, the edge of it as keen as a knife. “I expect nothing less.”

Gwen leans in, pressing her parted lips to the corner of Morgana’s mouth. Morgana ghosts her fingers there, lingering on the seam of her lips before surging forward, stopping just short of a full kiss on Gwen’s lips. Gwen strokes her fingertips over her mouth and imagines that they are Morgana’s, that their skin-heat is Morgana’s. 

“What has he taught you of yourself, my lady?” Morgana asks when she pulls away, curling her fingers around Gwen’s jaw and chin. “What have you learned at his side?”

“You sound jealous,” Gwen says, hovering her hand on Morgana’s wrist. She leans into Morgana’s hair, and the waterfall of her curls is less than breath. It’s enough for now. It has to be. 

“Oh, but I am. I am deeply jealous of them.” Gwen studies her as she speaks. She still bears faint scars from the battle at Wenwood. “Arthur,” Morgana lists. “Lancelot. And now Merlin above all, because he gets to see you every day, and see you laugh, and see you learn what power is. Why should I not be jealous?”

“Because you are rallying against my people. You persist in your war, Morgana. That is your choice.”

“War is not a choice we ever make in isolation.” Morgana leans in. Their noses should have bumped with the motion. They are close enough that her gaze seems as large as two suns in the sky. “Your king chooses to persist in his law. You persist in supporting a city that would damn us. We all make our choices.”

Gwen trails her knuckles just over Morgana’s cheek, and Morgana follows the motion, mirroring her precisely. “It sounds like you too harbor resentment.”

Morgana smiles again, small and private. “Immensely,” she breathes, separated from Gwen by only a sliver of air and the absence of real breath. In the living world, Morgana's resentment has lit pyres across the kingdoms, but she says it like it's a secret, and against all truth, it even feels like one. She leans back, settling again on the ground. “Show me what you can do, then,” she tells Gwen. “To lessen my resentment.”

Gwen raises an eyebrow. “You can lessen your resentment yourself.”

Morgana’s smile touches her eyes now, creasing their edges, and Gwen tries to remember the last time she had felt happiness or guilt so great. “Peace, my lady,” she says, and Gwen can only watch. “Indulge me. Show me what you can do.” She lowers her voice like she is telling a secret again. “Let go, Gwen.”

Gwen shrugs, scraping her nails along the ground they sit on. It is a strange sensation—of feeling something beneath her fingers, like gravel or sand, but also knowing that there is nothing there. “I don’t have anything to show. All I did was try to light a candle, and—there aren’t any candles here.”

“We are in a dream.” Morgana holds out her hand, and the black blade from their first duel materializes in her fingers, a shard of night. “Anything can exist here. Everything you wish. You need only want it.”

Morgana lets the blade dissolve into a breeze. Gwen studies the white nothingness beneath her hands. It hadn’t even crossed her mind that they could make things that were not swords and knives in the name of hurting. Slowly, almost fearfully, she extends one hand and closes it around the empty air. In the space of time between the bending of her knuckles and the touch of her fingertips to her palm, she pulls out of the air a wax candle on a brass candlestick, sweet-scented with honey. It is the same as the candle that had once stood on Morgana’s desk, and for a moment, they both stare at it—the drips of wax, the half-burned wick, the dust in the crevices of the metal arms holding the candle in place.

“I tried to light this,” Gwen says into the quiet. She sets it down on the white of the no-ground, and it makes no sound upon impact. “There were all these spells, and I tried to light it—”

“And?” Morgana prompts.

“And nothing. It didn’t light. Nothing I could do made it light.” Gwen sighs, picking at the wax half-dripped onto the brass holder. It sticks beneath her fingernails, like real wax. “Latent magic, he said. Low-level power. I—won’t even be able to control it through spellwork.”

“Latent magic,” Morgana repeats, her words somewhere between wonderment and mockery. “Is that what they’re calling any powers they don’t understand?” She pushes the candle towards Gwen. “What did you do next?”

“I—” Gwen falters. She can’t look at Morgana. There is something rushing through her like the swell of the ocean, through her fingertips and veins. “I thought of you. I thought of war, and prophecy, and you.” Her voice is distant and strange in her own ears as the memory of it pulls at her, a lapping tide. “And then—” 

The candle in front of her lights itself. There is a silent singing in the air, and then more candles rise from the white as new shoots out of snow, pale and tawny and ivory. She sets them all aflame. Their flames grow and flare past their wicks, trickling down the sides of the candles in place of melting wax and spilling onto the ground. The floor is brought into being beneath the fire, rough wooden planks unfurling to the walls suddenly towering about them, and for the space of a heartbeat they are in Camelot, in a dark room, the scent of smoke and dust thick and heady, and the fire grows, and grows, and grows, until Gwen can’t take the rush in her blood anymore, and she screams.

The room gutters, fire in the wind, and then it is gone. There is only one candle in front of her now, the flame on its wick dancing in an unseen breeze. Morgana is staring at her like she has never seen her before. This time, the disrecognition is thrilling.

“Gwen,” Morgana gasps. She reaches a trembling hand out to Gwen, tracing the space in front of her eyes with a disbelief that verges on awe. Her eyes. Her eyes must be—

Gwen forces herself out of her bed the moment she wakes up in the dark of her room, stumbling to her washbasin before the fog of sleep has unwrapped its clinging hands from her legs and feet. The still water sloshes out of the sides when she half-falls on the stand, bracing herself on the rim of the basin. It is already fading by the time she looks down into the water, but she can still see it in the reflection of her eyes—gold, bright as the sunlight in the growing seasons.

_It is nearing Midsummer. Your belly is round as the curve of the moon. I have come to learn that summer is the cruellest season._

I want to see the ocean, _you tell me one day._ One last time.

_You had spent your young years in Domnonée, the shining kingdom across the sea. You ran along the white shores when you were a girl and dreamed of touching everything the waters touched, of diving deep and sluicing through the waves with all the force you could not show on ordinary land. The ocean is what you wanted to be—unbound and indomitable, ever-raging. No one could ever deny the force of the ocean. You were ever my sea. My sea, my sun, my stars, all my cliches of vast devotion—all of them proof of the inadequacy of language. I cannot love your husband and your son, Ygraine. Not in the future we have chosen. No matter how much you tell me to._

_I call on the earth to move underneath us and take you to the pale rock cliffs at the furthest edge of your kingdom. You look out over the ocean until the sun goes down, and then you turn back to look at me. I had run out of tears a fortnight ago. I can no longer cry. If I could, I would be weeping now._

Nimueh, _you say, and I reach for you wordlessly. I hold you as tight as I can, pressing salt-wet kisses to your hair, your neck, your mouth, your hands, every beloved fraction of you._ Nimueh, _you repeat, and I drink you in the way you want to drink in the tides._

_What else can I do now?_

_The sea will always be here. It will outlive us both. It will still rage for you when you are gone. It will still rage for me. I spend days searching for the solace in that, but there is little to be found._


	9. Whatever Weakness Is

War comes to Kesteven. The town accepts Arthur’s offer of aid and turns away Morgana’s embassy, headed by Helios. The battle itself would not commence without the sorceress there to lead her troops, which means that Camelot has time to prepare. Arthur spends the next sennight arranging for those who do not want to fight to move from Kesteven into Camelot. Houses in the lower town squeeze extra pallets next to their hearths, and Gwen walks through the courtyard and offers aid where she can, helping the newcomers settle in. They all walk as though tired to their bones. She helps a little girl draw water from the well and carry it back to the house where she and her mother are sleeping. Her mother is a silver-haired woman with broad, strong shoulders. _When are we going back home?_ the girl asks, and the woman draws her into an embrace and tells her, _When the sorceress is defeated._

_What sorceress?_ the girl asks. _I’ve never heard of her before._

Gwen is already out the door, but she thinks she hears the woman answer with something like, _I don’t know, dear heart. I haven’t, either._

Agravaine is deeply unhappy with Arthur’s offer of refuge to Kesteven’s residents. He makes his unhappiness known one evening, when the council meetings have run so late that three of the lords trail Arthur back to his chambers, still airing their concerns. Two of them are stopped by the guards at his door, but Agravaine is not.

Gwen glances up when the door to Arthur’s main chamber opens, halfway through changing the tapestries to the heavy hangings meant for winter. Merlin is with Gaius, making sure the yearly autumn fever doesn’t spread through the children new to the citadel; she is picking up his shifts between helping Imogen with the soldiers' mending and assisting Hilda in her supervision of the yearly rationing, given all the extra mouths in the lower town. Gwen can tell that Merlin wouldn't quite trust her anymore, if his schedule had given him room for mistrust.

Arthur enters. Agravaine doesn’t even allow him the time to set aside his crown before he starts. “You are allowing your city to be overrun by rabble from the Fens, Arthur?” he demands. “With the winter oncoming, when we need the rations for our soldiers—”

“Morgana has only targeted Kesteven because of how close it is to us. We are knowingly bringing destruction to their city; this is the least we can do.”

“You are doing far too much for them, and too little for your own people.”

“They are my people, Agravaine!” Arthur snarls. The lord stares at him in what seems to be shock, and he stares back, chest heaving.

Arthur abruptly walks over to his desk, settling in his chair. “Lord Agravaine,” he says, teeth gritted. “Your contributions to the council have been well-noted. Do not think anything otherwise.” Agravaine freezes halfway through his bow when he hears what the king says next. “Winter in Camelot is not a good time to travel, but when spring comes—I expect you and your retinue to return to Domnonée. Am I clear?”

A sad smile stretches at Agravaine’s lips. He starts, “Arthur—”

“You have done nothing except undermine my authority and turn all the council against me—”

“Nephew, listen to me—”

“Absolutely not.” Arthur’s voice is sharp. “I am not blind, Agravaine. You will leave in the spring, or I will remove you.”

“I love you, Arthur,” Agravaine says softly. “Who has turned you against me?”

“That is my question to you as well.” There is nothing on Arthur’s face.

Gwen slowly finishes tying the last of the counterweights meant to hold the hangings on the wall. She crouches next to her basket and starts fiddling with the old tapestries in her basket. One of her hands slips around her knife. There are guards at the door who are the king’s first line of protection in case of an assassination. It should not have to come to her—but if things had gone as they should, then Agravaine would not be here in the first place.

“Arthur,” Agravaine sighs at last, his brow furrowed somberly. Gwen clenches her hand in the basket of hangings in front of her. If she knew for certain that she would be victorious, she would risk the pyre to save Arthur now, but she does not have the luxury of that surety. She looks up to the ceiling—praying to the Goddess in all her forms, searching for a loose beam to bring down onto Agravaine’s head, she cannot quite decide. “You had to be so difficult, my dear.”

Arthur’s hand flies to his sword. He shouts for the guards, but a fraction of a moment too late. An etched gem gleams a luminous green in Agravaine’s outstretched hand, and they are all frozen. The air feels as ungiving as stone against Gwen’s arms and legs, and try as she might, her throat is disobedient to her, heavy and unspeaking. The guards are frozen mid-step in the doorway, their armor shining from the motes of light hanging in the air, and Arthur is staring at his uncle in incomprehension. 

“I was going to remove you to a border estate,” Agravaine murmurs. “You could have lived out your life in comfort, nephew. You didn’t have to fight so much.”

Gwen watches Arthur struggle against the spell, throat straining with the might of his effort. “How?” he manages to croak. His breath comes hard and labored. “Why?”

The stone flashes, closing in as a vise on Gwen's chest, and Arthur is forced back into silence. 

Agravaine's smile grows. It is no less unhappy. “The first is easy enough.” He leans down in front of Arthur, turning the runestone in front of him. “I went to the witch Morgana and offered her my aid when she was first ousted from Camelot. She gave me this and told me to ruin you.” The markings shimmer yellow and green entwined, and Gwen can see it now, the glitter of her lady's eyes in the lord’s clumsy fingers. She stares at the stone, and it seems to pulsate, breath-like. If it is Morgana’s magic—is it still drawing from her blood and bone? Did she feel it when it was called to power? Gwen barely registers Agravaine’s words as he says, with no triumph, “And I was all too happy to do so.” 

The lord straightens abruptly, starting to pace around the room. “I cannot let you rule this kingdom, Arthur. I look at you sometimes, and I see Ygraine.” 

This is the first time Gwen has seen Agravaine act anything other than kind. All of his cloying affability is gone, leaving behind an old grief that wells like wine in a cup overflowing. “She was so gentle," Agravaine says. "So kind. All she wanted was to raise a family and be happy. I fought for my whole life to protect her, but then she had to marry a brute from the Pendragon line who cheated on her with Gorlois’ wife and then killed her for the sake of an heir. Your father was a butcher who bartered my sister’s life to a conjuring witch like it was nothing more than coin.” 

Agravaine’s voice breaks. “Ygraine would still be alive if it weren’t for Uther. And you—you, Arthur, no matter how much you look like her, you will never be more than the creature who killed her.”

All the struggle has drained from Arthur, and he cannot flinch away when Agravaine slowly makes his way back to him. “I will not have you ruling over her kingdom,” the lord says. The spell holds Arthur still as Agravaine kisses him on the forehead. He takes the crown from Arthur’s head and sets it on his own.

Camelot is fallen. Gwen grits her teeth, trying to wrench herself from the spell’s influence, casting her power towards the stone in any way she can imagine, but to no avail. It only flashes and sparks, growing stronger as Agravaine strides over to her. He pays the guttering light no heed as he crouches down and uncurls her fingers from around her knife. “I doubt anyone will be too surprised. You have always gotten underfoot where you shouldn’t have,” Agravaine tells her gently. “For what it’s worth, though, I will advocate for a painless execution.”

Words like his are worth nothing. Gwen glares at the green stone in his hand. There is a tugging sensation from underneath her ribs, between her lungs. She doesn’t know what she is doing. She hopes it’s something. 

Agravaine hefts her knife as he returns to stand in front of Arthur. “After this is over, I will defeat the witch once and for all. She thought I would reward her for her aid, but I will be damned before I let another one of Uther’s children lead Ygraine's kingdom.” He examines the edge of the metal, uncaring of the hurt in Arthur's eyes. “Vivienne’s spawn. Of course the butcher fell into that woman’s bed.”

He presses the knife to Arthur’s throat. "Ygraine," he breathes, "forgive me."

“Ygraine is dead. She couldn’t forgive you even if she wanted to.”

The lord starts like he has heard the dead speaking, a line of blood freshly drawn under the blade in his hands. She is standing in the doorway, where before there was no one. Morgana freezes Agravaine mid-word. The air sings as she glides towards the man, her robes billowing in an unfelt breeze. Her black sword pulses with an eerie red in her hand, and her eyes are blazing. “Did you think that I would not know, Agravaine?” she asks, her every syllable sweet. “Did you think that I would not divine your true intentions? That I am such a naive little girl, who so admires your aid and advice?”

The veins at Agravaine’s temples bulge as he struggles against her hold. “Your precious dead will not walk again, no matter how you try to avenge them,” Morgana tells him. “You will never sit on Camelot’s throne.” 

She suddenly jerks Agravaine’s head to one side, forcing him to look at Gwen. Morgana’s gaze burns even brighter, fixed on Gwen. Gwen would not have wanted to move even if she could, and she watches with her pulse too loud in her ears as Morgana leans close to the lord and hisses with a ferocity that Gwen has only ever seen in her ambition— 

“And you will never, ever harm her.”

By some fluke, or some choice of enchantment, the spell's hold on Gwen flickers, letting her shut her eyes and flinch away from the stroke of the sword. She still hears Agravaine’s stifled grunt of pain, caught in his locked throat, the _thud_ of his body hitting the floor. The smell of blood blooms thick and metallic in her nostrils. She thinks she hears the rustle of fabric as Morgana moves over to their table, a brief apology, the clink of her nails on metal and the nestling of a crown on hair.

Someone is hovering over her. She is frozen in her recoil, but she can feel Morgana there, in front of her, close enough to reach if only she could reach, and she struggles against her unseen bonds to pry open her eyes and her hands, but to no avail. A cool finger traces down her face, like the touch of living rain. They are both trembling.

“You were lucky I felt your call, my lady,” she whispers, barely loud enough to travel the air between them.

And then she is gone.

When the spell loosens its hold on her, Gwen sags against her basket, her shoulders aching. She levers herself up, slow and reluctant to evaluate the state of their new kingdom, and starts at what she sees. Her knife is in the basket in front of her, wiped clean of blood. Arthur is curled in on himself, blood brilliant on his neck, weeping as he looks to where his uncle lies. The crown is still sitting on his head. It is stained with bloody fingerprints, a shock of royal red against deep gold.

They search the castle from the lowest dungeons to the highest towers, but to no avail. Morgana is gone, as quickly as she had come. Leon, Elyan, and Gwaine berate their respective squadrons for being so lax as to let the priestess walk into the king’s rooms. Outside of Agravaine’s body, now resting in state in the great hall, no one can find evidence of her presence in the citadel. No maps tracking supply caravan movements or documents accounting for the numbers and positions of their troops are stolen. No weapons go missing. No spells are planted. The king’s room and the nobles’ corridors are clear of hidden traps. It is not until Gaius calls Arthur down to the apothecary that they have any idea what Morgana was doing.

“The sorceress took several healing tinctures, meant for mortal wounds,” the old physician tells them, surveying his shelves again with furrowed brow. “Ointments to relieve pain. Nothing that can be used to harm, sire.”

Arthur sits down heavily on one of the chairs at Gaius’ table. Kara, who hasn’t stopped chopping wormwood through all the commotion around her, stares at the still-bleeding cut on his neck. The blood is running down his neck in slow trails now, seeping his collar. She doesn’t move to clean it or bind it, but she doesn’t move away—or make the bleeding any worse. 

“Why would she go to the trouble of breaking into the castle for a healing draught?” Arthur asks. When he rakes his hand through his hair, his fingers catch on his crown. He fumbles it off his head with clumsy fingers, dropping it on the table with a clatter when he sees the bloody smudges on the metal. “Surely—” his voice breaks, “—surely there are other ways of procuring medicine.”

“Those were left over from your father’s reign, sire.” _Before the Purges,_ they all hear. Gaius continues, “They are rare and require difficult and precise magic to activate. For all I know, they are no longer potent.”

Merlin goes to the king with a damp cloth, honey, and linen bandages, cleaning and dressing his wound with careful fingers. He rests his hand on the curve between Arthur’s neck and shoulder for a moment, waiting until Arthur’s shaking calms, before he starts to clean the crown with short, methodical swipes of his cloth. Gwen fiddles with an empty bottle on the table in front of her—garnet glass, small enough to fit into the palm of her hand. Such a fine glass is a display of luxury, a token as much as it is a vessel. Morgana’s sleeping draughts had come in such small bottles, suffocation veiled in finery. 

Infiltrating the enemy’s citadel to steal healing draughts and nothing more—that is a decision borne of sentiment or desperation, not ambition. “It’s Morgause,” Gwen says aloud, tapping her fingers against the red glass. “Morgause is dying.”

“Morgause is dead.” Merlin rebuts immediately. “She was sacrificed to open the Veil, so they could raise the undead. She can’t be alive.”

“But she is.” Gwen glances at the merry fire always dancing in Gaius’ hearth. “Morgana—told me. The Mother said that no sacrifice was necessary to release the undead. It was full payment for the deaths in the Purges. Morgause’s life was returned to her after the Veil was closed.”

The room falls quiet. Gwen doesn’t have to look up to know the stares all turned to her.

“When did you learn of this?” Arthur finally asks. He doesn’t sound angry—only tired and empty.

“Months ago.” Gwen exhales heavily. “In the high summer. Arthur, she—her life was returned to her, but no more. She was badly wounded and drained of her abilities. I didn’t think a woman on her deathbed could be a threat to us.”

“Clearly she’s not dead yet,” Arthur snaps. He doesn’t say anything else.

Gaius clears his throat and announces that his constitution needs rest after the day he has just endured. He retires to his own bedroom. Kara bottles up her wormwood leaves. Her knife and cutting board clank loudly when she sets them on the shelf. She sits down on her pallet and starts to page her way through a codex Merlin had given her on medicinal plants. It is only the barest illusion of privacy, but it works nonetheless.

“I’m sorry,” Gwen says. It is the truth, and all she can offer. The life of a king is one of betrayal, and she wonders why she cannot help but be another one of them, no matter how often she calls herself his friend.

Arthur doesn’t respond immediately. The fire is reflected in the gleam of his eyes, bringing to light the open hurt and anger he cannot yet bear to speak aloud. “Is there anything else you haven’t told me, Gwen?” he asks.

Gwen wants to bury her head in her hands. “I would never betray Camelot,” she says, as good as an admission. “Arthur—believe me, Arthur, I would never bring you to harm—”

“But you are still not telling me the truth. Not all of it, at least.”

She pushes herself from her chair to stand in front of him. “Look at me,” she says, as close to supplication as she has ever been. “I will tell you, Arthur.” She thinks he would flinch away if she touched him, so her hands pause just in front of his shoulders, where he can see. “I swear to you that I will tell you all of the truth, one day soon. But for now, you are the king in the midst of a war. And you need to act as such. I do not want to put you in a position where you have to choose between being a king and being a friend.”

“You said you wouldn't lie to me.” Arthur’s words are caught between a question and a plea.

“I don’t want to.” She lets her hands fall. “Please, Arthur. Don’t make me.”

He surveys her face carefully before nodding, once. The shuttered hurt does not leave his eyes. Merlin settles the crown back on his head and guides him up from the chair back to his chambers. Arthur’s steps are heavy, lagging; he clings to Merlin like a drowning man to a raft. Gwen remembers with a start that his uncle has just died by the sword in front of him—and for all his flaws, all his betrayal, Agravaine was still Arthur’s family, and Arthur has precious little left of blood and bone to call his own. He must be at the limit of pushing back his grief. 

He had once trusted her enough to weep in front of her. She doesn't have to ask why he no longer wants to show her his tears.

When Gwen falls asleep that night, she is the first to enter the white world. She spends time pacing and clawing at the nothingness in front of her in a vain attempt at creation. Nothing grows. Nothing blooms. She chases the rhythm of her pulse, trying to recreate the same pulling glow she had felt earlier with Morgana’s magic, but to no avail. The most she can manage is a couple sparks when she snaps her fingers, borne more from the friction of her frustration than any real skill.

“You’re learning,” Morgana says from behind her.

“If you can call this progress.” Gwen snarls in disappointment when a flame smaller than a candle’s flickers to life at her fingertips and sputters out just as quickly. 

“I wasn’t talking about that.” Morgana draws near to her, crossing her arms. She is in dark clothing today—not her ceremonial black, but plain, coarse breeches and a short tunic. Her hair is bound in the manner of the chambermaids. “You called me here. I wasn’t even sleeping yet, but I felt your pull.”

"My—pull," Gwen repeats. She only has the vaguest idea of what Morgana is talking about—the tug in her chest, in the vicinity of her heart.

"It's quite impressive, for someone as unused to magic as you are."

She can’t tell if Morgana is being genuine or damning her with faint praise. “Did you feel it with the runestone?”

“Aye, tenfold. Because I was close, and you were desperate.” Morgana settles on the ground, and Gwen sits next to her, as has become their ritual. “Agravaine was a fool to surmount all others. I never mistook him for anything other than a delusional man, but I didn’t know he’d be so careless.” She grins suddenly. “Ygraine hated him, you know. She hated her whole family for not letting her live.”

“And how would you know that? Did you summon her from the dead to puppet her around?” Gwen cannot keep the rancor from her voice, but it is less sharp than it could have been. It has been long enough since the high summer.

Morgana’s laugh is short, bordering on bitter. “Nothing so drastic. Morgause has been reading Nimueh’s old diaries to keep herself occupied. I read them to her, on the days she’s too tired to keep upright.” She glances at Gwen. “Nimueh and Ygraine were lovers back when they were both alive.”

In all of her years in Camelot, Gwen has never heard of such rumors about the late Queen. Much is said of Ygraine, of course: her kindness and gentleness, her radiance and beauty, her death at the hands of a treacherous sorceress—how Nimueh had turned into a snake and bitten her during her labor, or turned into a cloying fog and crawled into her lungs, or dug her hands into her belly and pulled the baby out through her ribs and left the queen there, bleeding and broken. Ygraine can no longer speak for herself. There are three things it is convenient for a woman to be: kind, beautiful, and dead.

“Are you sure that’s the best reading material for someone in recovery?” Gwen asks hesitantly. She doesn’t think that Morgana is lying. Morgana has more talent in wielding vindictive honesty than spinning falsehoods—lying for the sake of sensationalism is not in her nature. Why lie when the truth is so much stranger?

“Morgause says it helps because it reminds her to stay angry,” Morgana says. “And at this point—” she breaks off. “It’s not recovery, Gwen. It’s only a matter of when she will go. She’s just—hanging on for as long as she can.”

They are both forgetting their roles too easily nowadays. “Morgana—” Gwen doesn’t know how to ask the question she wants to. “Weren’t you the one who killed Morgause by the Isles? You—”

“She told me to do it.” Gwen is glad Morgana interrupts her when she does. “What kind of monster do you think I am, that I would willingly slaughter the sister I've only just met?” Morgana sounds like she is pleading. “She was mortally wounded, in psyche and in body. Her magic was drained completely. There was a good chance she wouldn’t have made it to the next dawn. She said—she said she wanted her death to count for something, that there was nothing left for her here, and it would be her final gift to me—”

“So she asked you to kill her.” Gwen stares at Morgana. She seems here, in all her glory and her flaws, fine scars on her face, chest rising and falling with every breath, grief and piercing guilt in her eyes. Why isn't she here? What can't Gwen touch her?

“I couldn't deny her final request. She wanted to die.”

“I don’t think so.” Gwen says. Her voice is as kind as she can make it. She pauses for a moment before forging on. “I don’t blame you, Morgana. Please know that. I only want to know what truly happened, and to me, it sounds like—it wasn’t that she wanted to die, it was that she wanted you to be the one to set the knife to her.”

“She wanted her death to have meaning.”

“I have no doubt that she did.” Gwen works her jaw in silence for a few moments, trying to find the right words. “And when you put your knife through her neck, you became the last of the high priestesses, and the most powerful among them. A woman who would stop at nothing, not even blood sacrifice. She wanted to die by your hand because she knew what it would wreak on you.”

Morgana blinks at Gwen. “That’s your point with all this? That Morgause is manipulating me?” 

Gwen nods. Morgana throws back her head and laughs heartily. “Of course she is—I wouldn’t trust her if she wasn’t.” All of her teeth are bared. “Everyone has been manipulating me since I was old enough to be a worthwhile pawn. Every man who ever saw me in court. Every woman who ever saw me in the gardens. My father, and Uther, and Gaius—and Merlin, and Arthur, and Morgause—and you. Even you, Gwen. All of you wanted something from me that I did not want to give.”

Gwen remembers slipping the sleeping draught into honeyed milk for Morgana to drink at night. The stuff is barely any less bitter than aconite—of course Morgana had known.

And she had drunk it anyway. Every night. Down to the dregs. “I’m sorry,” Gwen says. 

It's a worthless phrase, and all she has. Morgana’s wild grin grows into something fonder, but no less angry. “I know you are. It’s why I haven’t run you through.” She feathers her fingers across Gwen’s knuckles. “Being too good is a dangerous thing, Gwen. You always believe what you are doing is right. Morgause never had that problem.”

She ghosts her palm around the shape of Gwen’s braids, and Gwen lets her eyes flicker shut, imagining the phantom touch. “I’m sorry as well,” Morgana adds softly. “For all the things I’ve done to hurt you.”

That startles Gwen into laughing, sharp and rueful, but she finds herself leaning into Morgana nonetheless, pressing into the emptiness above her shoulder. “You haven’t gotten any better at lying.”

When she looks up, Morgana is smiling, no less rueful. "I am sorry, Gwen," she repeats. "I am, for hurting you." Their fingers pass through each other when she reaches for Gwen’s hand. “But everything else I've done—Camelot wanted to keep me small. Trembling and docile and afraid. And for all that Morgause tried to make me do, she never wanted me to be small.”

“She made you cruel.” 

“Is that so much worse than making me gentle?”

Yes. It is. It always is. But when they are all in a world already given to cruelty, and when gentleness can itself be cruel—

Gwen suddenly finds that she cannot so easily answer the question.

Agravaine has the honor of a funeral in state. There are still rumors that Arthur had killed his uncle from fear of his increasing influence in court, but the whispers are far fewer than they would have been had the lord simply vanished. The dread sorceress had come to the citadel and killed the king's most beloved advisor, and with Arthur's guards sworn to secrecy under pain of being stripped of their knighthood, no courtier has any evidence to contest the official announcement. On the day of the funeral, Gwen stands in Arthur's chambers, watching as he struggles to adjust the ties on his mourning cloak in the small mirror mounted on the wall. Mirrors are a luxury in their castle. She almost prefers the blurriness of water. In the cold glare of glass, she looks tired beyond what even she knows.

"Gwen," Arthur says, with no little reluctance. "Can you—"

Her eyes meet his in the mirror, and he glances away. "Of course," she says, going to him. She fixes the lay of his cloak and the closing ties with practiced fingers, so everything falls properly. Her fingers do not linger. When she is done, she steps back, and he does not follow. They regard each other in silence, each unwilling to be the first to admit to their discomfort. When was the last time he had to ask for someone to fix his cloak, or help him with the ties of his tunic? A king having to ask for something—the notion is laughable.

"So—when's Merlin coming?" she asks, worrying on a corner of her lip. The room is too quiet, with only the two of them.

“He’s not, today.” 

Gwen stills. Arthur doesn’t sound angry, necessarily, but his shoulders and neck are held so stiffly that Gwen is afraid he might shatter like too-thin glass at the barest touch. Merlin is never far parted from Arthur, stubborn in his unyielding devotion. The only reason Merlin would not be here is if Arthur had ordered him away, and Arthur wouldn’t order him away unless something momentous happened.

Gods and hells. What if—

“Is everything okay with the two of you?” she asks carefully. He would probably believe her at this point, if she told him she had enchanted Merlin to do magic. It would be banishment at the least, or, more likely, a public burning. But it would save her friend, and she could probably delay her execution for a couple days, long enough to get out of Camelot in a self-imposed exile—

Arthur sounds just as careful when he replies. “Are you jealous, Gwen?”

She is so startled by the question that she barks out a laugh, and once she starts laughing, she can’t stop. Worry creeps across Arthur’s face as he watches her giggle, clapping her hand over her mouth to try and quell the sound. “No,” she gasps out. “No, Arthur, I’m—the furthest thing from jealous. Trust me. No.”

His brow furrows. “Are you—alright?” he asks slowly.

No. Decidedly not. “Aye,” she says aloud, trying to regain her breath. She is laughing with such force that she has started to cry. “It’s just—I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing, but it’s been a hellish sennight, and then your question—” she waves her hand at him, unsure of what she can even say. “You don’t need to worry about that.”

The room is ringingly still after the raucousness of her laughter, and Gwen has to try a couple times before she manages, “We both have things far more important than my pride to worry about.”

Arthur cracks a smile. It is pained and small, but still reaches at his eyes. “You’re right about one thing, Gwen; it has been a hellish sennight,” he says. He turns away from the mirror. “I asked Merlin to take the day off because I am—too easily weak around him.” He holds up a hand, preempting her response. “I know. Grief is not the same thing as weakness, and I am not weak for feeling pain. But that does not matter today.” He takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders, lifting his chin high and proud, untouchable. “This is for the court. Nothing more. Whatever weakness is in their eyes, I cannot afford today. He doesn't understand that.” He is staring fixedly over her shoulder as he speaks. “You do.”

Gwen nods. There are many things made in the eyes of others—monsters, goodness, weakness. She knows this well.

“At least it’ll be over soon,” she offers. 

Arthur’s lips are pressed thin. “Will it?” 

He’s not talking about the funeral; Gwen knows that. He continues, “I thought I wouldn’t mourn him. I thought—I thought that this would be like a victory. An enemy of Camelot, gone. But I can’t—he was my uncle, Gwen.” He whirls away, pacing in short, jerky lines around his room. “He brought me salt candy from Domnonée when I was little.” 

Gwen pictures him, a boy of six or seven summers old, running around his stern uncle as he quested for the love of a family he had never known. “He played robbers and knights with me whenever he visited the castle. He told me stories about my mother.” Arthur trails off, teetering on the edge of complete dissolution. “He—I—”

“You love him.”

"He betrayed me."

"And you still love him. They can both be true at once." Grief is not so obedient to reason. It is a force unto itself, selfish, intractable to either logic or emotion. “And you can mourn him while hating what he has done to you. Those can also both be true.”

"That's all I can do now." Arthur spits the words out, almost as an accusation. "Mourn for the dead. Because there is no one left alive."

By the time he has finished speaking, he is trying not to cry. His eyes are wet and brimming, but one of his hands is clasped tightly over his mouth, so he will not make a further sound. Gwen turns away and lets him compose himself. There will be time enough for grieving after the funeral, and time for anger beyond that. “You should let Merlin stay with you tonight,” she says in the direction of the back door. She’s forfeited the right to comfort him, but she will still be damned before she lets him stand alone. “And have him bring a pitcher or something. I know you want to keep strong, but you shouldn't be by yourself right now—”

“No.” His voice is steadier now, and Gwen deems it safe to turn back. There are tear tracks down his cheeks. “I can’t drink tonight. Six cohorts are leaving for Kesteven in the morn. I will be leading them.”

Gwen bows her head, her breath spiralling from her lungs. “It’s come, then.”

“A messenger rode in this morning.”

Her stomach drops, heavy as a stone. She hands him her kerchief, and he takes it with his fingertips and scrubs his face clean of tears. The bell rings. They proceed to the courtyard, their black cloaks fluttering in the snap of the autumn wind. Gwen stands behind the king as he reads the prayers and lights the pyre. The air is filled with the smell of burning greenery and blood, and her eyes start smarting from the smoke. By the end, when there is nothing left save bone and ash, everyone is crying. The people from the lower town are the first to file away, holding scarves over their noses to keep from inhaling the acrid fumes. Then the nobles, back to the clean white corridors of the castle. The servants peel away from the balconies, returning to the usual motions of their life, and the funeral master goes to pour water over the ashes and scoop them into their urn. The knights break from their parade rest. Their ceremonial lances are ferried back to the armory. The funeral is over.

Gwen has to call Arthur’s name thrice before he reacts. She pulls him away from the pyre with a hand on his sleeve, and he tugs his arm away from her and goes into the castle on his own feet, his steps steady and poised on the cobblestones, the gait of a king. It is not until they come back to his rooms that she sees him start to shake apart.

He won’t, _you tell me._ Uther wants a son more than anything, Nimueh. Magic will be what gives him a son. He won’t blame you.

_I am resting my head on your chest, where your heart now beats. Your husband returns tomorrow. Your babe will come into the world within the next fortnight. Your heart will stop beating then. I will be bereft of you. And the world will end. These things will come to pass, as surely as winter passes into spring, and spring into summer. But they are not fate. I have chosen to act on my love for you. Uther will choose to act on the same. They are not fate, but they are still ordained—by the hand of circumstance and context, by the blade of human action. I am useless against this tide._

_There is nothing in the world I hate more than this utter futility._

Merlin rushes into her room at the break of dawn, when she is yawning into her pillow and debating another half-bell of sleep. “He’s gone,” he announces, glaring at her with something like an accusation.

Gwen squints at him. His hair is sticking up at the back of his head, the left side of his face creased from his sheets. He must have just stumbled out of bed. It takes a moment for her to remember the reason for Arthur’s absence, but when she does, all the leftover sleep falls from her mind, and she is left coldly awake in the glare of day.

“I thought—you would’ve gone with him.” Her words are still groggy and slurred from the early hour. She rises from her pallet with stiff knees and starts to make her bed.

“He didn’t want me near the battle.” Merlin seems stretched taut as a drum, on the verge of snapping. “He said he’d lock me in the dungeons if I tried to follow him.”

“That’s never stopped you before.” 

“He said—” Merlin starts and stops just as quickly. He worries at the hem of his tunic with his free hand. “He said he didn’t want me getting hurt.”

Gwen pauses midway through making her bed. Merlin looks miserable in the dim light filtering in from the hallway. She sets down her blanket in an untidy lump and goes to stand next to him, arms crossed over her shift. 

“Arthur’s thought that for a long time now,” she tells him, nudging him with her shoulder. “And—he's right. You’re a healer, Merlin; you shouldn’t have to go into battle.”

“I’m the only one who can protect him.” Merlin steps away, putting more space between them. The hurt she feels is small in comparison to her worry, but it nags at her nonetheless. “I should be there,” Merlin continues, turning back to glare at her. His eyes are dark with the sort of anger that can only come from fear. “And I’m not much of a healer anymore.”

“Merlin—” Gwen starts. He is a healer, to the core of him, gentle to the sick and hurt, protective of living and breathing things, or at least this is what she tells herself, in spite of it all, that he is still kind to a world that has never shown him kindness. She then remembers what Morgana asked her when Gwen mourned her cruelty— _is that so much worse than making me gentle?_

“It’s true,” he snaps, and then he strides off without saying anything further.

Kesteven is the bitterest battle to date. Riders come in every day to speak to the council of lords, who are acting as regents in Arthur’s absence. They don’t let Gwen into the meetings anymore, not even to serve wine, but she still lingers in the servants’ corridors, behind tapestries and windows, long enough to hear what needs hearing. The near-empty village is being overrun by soldiers from both sides as they fight for control of the river port. Neither commander has paused the fighting for long enough to count the deaths; all they know is that the deaths are many, and increasing by the day. The rhythm of life in the castle goes on, so used to news of war that it does not even falter. Gwen persists in the motions of her duties. She sews her dress and sings with Imogen. Changes out the linens in the nobles’ chambers, oversees the maids as they haul and heat water for baths. Switches all the wall-hangings to the heavy winter tapestries, bedecking the halls in rich red. She can’t do anything else. The people from Kesteven mill about the lower town, helpless to do anything except wait.

That’s all any of them can do. Wait.

Gwen practices her magic in the privacy of her room, trying to pull the white covers off of the furniture and summon little fires to the wicks of her candles. She can’t ever manage more than a couple sparks at her fingertips, but they still make her smile. When she was a little girl, young enough to think little of the king’s law, she and Elyan played at being sorcerers, overcoming each other in harmless, imagined battles of good and evil. What child does not dream of a world where they can perform miracles?

“You need to stop doing that,” Merlin tells her under his breath when she tries to badger him into teaching her more. He is furiously stirring a fever draught in Gaius’ chambers, not even feigning to look at her. The door to the main apothecary is open. He refuses to close it. She leans over and pretends to watch him make the draught as two guards walk by the door, their armor clanking. They are talking about the latest news from Kesteven—the bridge over the river had been burned, and half the port along with it. 

“Why should I stop?” she whispers, glaring warily at the corridor outside. “It’s a part of me, Merlin, I need to learn how to use it—”

“You’ve spent the last twenty-odd years of your life not using it,” he retorts. He drops yarrow leaves into the cauldron and muddles them with a vengeance. “It’s already under control, Gwen. It’s better if you just don’t try. You nearly brought the castle down when you tried to light the candles. It’s way too dangerous—”

“Dangerous?” Gwen echoes, in disbelief. “It’s not dangerous; it’s a part of me—”

“You’re having her dreams,” he snaps. “You’re having prophetic dreams and a psychic connection with her that’s doing Mother knows what to your mind, and then all of a sudden your magic is going mad, like hers did. This can't happen again.”

She stares at him. “You think I’m turning into Morgana?”

“I don’t think it. I know you are.” His words are plain, matter-of-fact, as though he were speaking of the rising of the sun. “And I won’t have the same thing happen with you.”

“And you won’t have—” she breaks off in incredulity. “It’s my magic, Merlin, you don’t have a say over what will happen.”

His stirring stops. “You don’t even deny it,” he says flatly.

Gwen slowly straightens and takes one step back, and then another. “I will never betray you,” she hisses. “I will never betray this land. But if you would just think for a single moment about what you did to her—you know, _you know_ what it is like to have the world try to crush a part of you, and you still did nothing and kept her ignorant, and if you do the same thing to me, I will not be the one to blame when I go mad—”

Her voice has risen without her realizing it. The main door slams shut without a wind to aid it, sending all of Gaius’ loose parchment fluttering, and the fire under Merlin’s cauldron leaps like a dancer on Midsummer. His hand snaps up, palm outstretched, spinning lightning from the air as he regards her with blank, bright eyes. She stares at his hand in shock, then her own fingers, then the door, her chest heaving from her vehemence, her whole body strung tight like a bow in the wake of her anger. She sinks down into a chair and buries her head in her hands. “Brigit’s tears, Merlin, I didn’t mean—”

“I know.” The light in his hand subsides. He sets down his spoon and starts to rummage around the shelves, glass chiming against glass as he moves the vials around. One is placed in front of her with a muted _clink_. “This is why I’m worried, Gwen,” Merlin says, and his voice is horribly, inexorably gentle.

She knows the bottle Merlin set on the table. Garnet glass, filled with a dark liquid. 

“I’ve thought more about what you said.” Merlin’s eyes are clear again, and no longer blank. He is earnest. He would still mourn her, she thinks. “And I know now—it’s not worth it. Not for Arthur’s life.”

Gwen takes the sleeping draught up with trembling fingers. “And this—is Arthur’s life worth this?” she asks.

Merlin only hesitates for a moment before nodding. Gwen sets the draught down on the table and walks away. She doesn’t look back to Merlin to see what he is thinking. She doesn’t have to. 

She spends the afternoon packing scraps of oiled canvas over the windows with the other maids. The winds of autumn are gaining ferocity with each coming day, whistling through the cracks between the mullions and the panes. Camelot’s glass windows, clear as water, are a marvel, but they seem to crack as often as the cycle of the dawn and the dusk, so most of them have to be covered in the colder months. Gwen watches as the younger maids make a game out of it, clambering up and down the ladders with armfuls of canvas. They are normally never allowed to climb up to the windows. Gwen had done the same thing, during her first autumns in the castle. The milling lords had looked small as ants from the top of the ladder, and that was the closest she had ever felt to sprouting wings and flying. 

Every child dreams of magic. No matter where they grow, no matter the fear that shapes their homes, they each all dream of being extraordinary. She and Elyan had chased each other with sticks and screamed nonsense curses, careening around trees and over rocks and giggling as they tripped and fell into each other. Her brother was the one who taught her proper letters, showing her the children's books their father had read to him and pretending that the words on the pages were spells. On days when she hadn’t kicked his shin too many times and he hadn’t stolen her sweets, they pretended to defeat monsters together: the dragon of the forge’s fire, the gryphon of the half-rotten tree at the edge of town, the serpents which lurked in the river and the well. Even the monsters were wondrous—not monsters at all, but part of their sprawling world. They climbed trees and jumped down from the highest branches, imagining that they were conjuring clouds that brought them floating down on the ground. She broke her toes one time, and their father had scolded them both and forbidden them from going into the forest for a month afterwards.

Their father worried ceaselessly, but he never had the heart to stop them. They were both old enough to have vague memories of a Camelot with magic—Elyan had been four when Queen Ygraine died. The town apothecary, a woman named Eloise, conjured tokens for him to play with whenever they came to her. One of Gwen’s first memories, or a story she has confused for memory so many times that there is no difference between them, is of Elyan and Eloise’s daughter playing a hiding game. The girl would turn herself invisible, and Elyan would stumble around the room on his little child’s legs, giggling as he followed her laughter to find her. Gwen, still a babe who could barely toddle on her own two feet, watched them by the hearth. Their figures flicker like the hearth-flames in her mind. She had been two summers old when the queen passed away, and she can't remember what had happened, but she has been told stories of curtained windows and locked doors. When she was next permitted to leave their rooms above the forge, she was near another summer older, and Eloise and her daughter were gone.

Magic had been a part of their home. It still is. Children still play at being sorcerers; healers still stir their draughts over sparking burners, and the baker’s daughter still keeps her mother’s bread fresh in the lower town with a snap of her fingers. The only difference is that they must now do it in fear. They live on knowing there are bones lying beneath their feet. It makes her cold every time she thinks about it—how one man’s hatred killed thousands and thousands on a whim, and still reaches through the years to make them rip each other apart in the name of destiny. 

When Gwen falls asleep, she dreams of falling buildings and falling men, the flash of swords and the flash of eyes.

_You ask me,_ when will it happen?

Tomorrow, _I tell you._

_You can run no more from the future. And neither can I._


	10. To Be a Prophet

The fall sun, dazzling, with the promise of colder days. A city razed. Bright steel. Dark armor. A man grunts in pain, a man she knows, scarlet cloak spilling over the ground along with the splashing red of fresh blood, his hair is matted with blood and his eyes are empty blue glass, and they draw the blade across his throat, through the space between his spine-bones—

—a roar rising as his head is hoisted into the air, a victory prize—

—the king is dead, the king is dead, and she is weeping with no one to hear her—

She wakes up screaming so loudly that her throat is already hoarse. She screams into the silence, bundling her blanket and her pillows and her own hands over her mouth, but nothing stops the sound from pouring out of her. Arthur is dead. His eyes have nothing in them. There are gauntleted fingers speared through his hair, and no body where his body should be. He is dead. She can still see the blood. Hear the blade passing through muscle and bone. Living flesh resists. It is loud, until it isn't. There is blood everywhere, flung through the air like beads on a thread, splattered on the ground, pooling, on her skirts and her hands and filling her mouth until it trickles down into her lungs and drowns her.

It is already fall. She knows the way she knows her own name that he will die today.

Gwen stumbles out of bed and takes the stairs two at a time, unheeding of the stares she garners. Her hair is tangled about her head in a cloud of curls, sticking to her sweat. When she bursts through the doorway into Merlin’s room, he reels back, like he is seeing an apparition, some ghost of memory—and then he merely looks pained.

“Arthur’s going to die,” she rasps, dragging the words from her ragged throat. “Merlin—he’s dying—”

Merlin sighs, his shoulders slumping. “Gwen—”

“No. You aren’t listening. You have to listen to me, Merlin—please,” she gasps, stumbling forward to grab at his shoulders. She can see the light of her own gaze reflected in his clear pupils. Her eyes are burning, like salt on scraped knuckles, and he is caught between fear and pity as he watches her, and he isn't listening to a single thing she says. So this is what it feels like, to be a prophet.

“Gwen,” he repeats softly. He closes his hands around her wrists and peels them off of his shoulders. “You know what this looks like.”

“Yes,” she snarls. “I do. And she was always right. You never listened to her, and now we’re here. So listen to me.” She catches his hands before they can slip away, squeezing them tight in the vain hope that he can feel her earnestness. “I know you don’t trust me anymore, but—he’s going to die, I saw it, I could feel it, _I saw him die—_ ”

In the time it has taken her to come from her room to his, she has started crying again, angry tears dripping from her chin unimpeded. He doesn’t move to hold her, but he also isn’t moving away. She presses on. “Please. Gods and hells, Merlin, believe me. Please. If I’m lying to you—I’ll walk away from here and never come back. I swear to you, by the Mother we hold dear. Just let me save him.”

He surveys her carefully. She doesn’t know if he finds what he is searching for or not, but he nods shortly before turning away and starting to change. Her knees give then, and she sinks down onto his pallet, wiping the tear tracks from her cheeks. She can’t get the blood off her tongue. It clings.

“When?” Merlin asks, in the middle of shoving his tunic over his head. “Where?”

Gwen squeezes her eyes shut. The blood flares like a fire, and she sees it all again—the sun, the city, the falling. “Noon,” she mutters, sweating in the burn of a sun that isn’t there. “High noon. In Kesteven. By the burned bridge.” Dazzling, cool leaves, rich as blood, dancing in the breeze, uncaring, funeral shroud. “Under the old oak tree.”

Merlin’s face, when she pries open her eyes, is bloodless. “Gwen.” His breath hitches. “Kesteven is a day’s ride away. We’re already too late.”

He might even believe her now.

“No.” She lurches to her feet, jabbing a finger at his chest. “You have the Mother’s magic. We will not be late.”

They swing by her room long enough for her to jam her feet into her riding boots and strap her knife to her waist. She’s still wearing her woolen sleeping shift, pale and baggy. They don’t have the time for her to don a kirtle or braid her hair, put on the face cream she carefully mixes to match her skin, control any of the fraying edges of her self. She can’t remember the last time she has gone out in such disarray. She doesn’t think she ever has. When they come to the stables, the stablehands look at her like they don’t know who she is anymore, elbowing each other and muttering in the background as she and Merlin rush to saddle their horses. She doesn’t think she’s imagining the giggles the two of them leave in their wake when they ride out, but she can't be sure how much of what she feels is from the present. The sky flickers every time she blinks, hot noon behind her eyelids, dim morning when she opens her eyes again. Blood and screaming are all she can hear. They enter the woods, and the branches engulf them like the sea.

“What should we do?” Merlin pants between the thundering of their horses. “Gwen—we have to—I don’t know any spell—”

“Damn the spell,” Gwen snaps. She takes one of her hands off her reins. Her vision is glitching gold with every beat of her heart now, the noon sun already blazing above her, and she reaches for Merlin with all her might. “Feel it, Merlin—you have to feel it—”

They urge their horses to leap over a fallen tree, landing in unison on the forest floor and kicking up leaves about them. Merlin glances sidewise at her, and in the moment of suspension between one push of his horse’s hooves and another, when they are hanging in the air like birds in frozen flight, he finally reaches back. Their fingertips brush together. 

For a moment, there is nothing. And then—

The air is filled with a noiseless ringing. The forest snaps. Beneath them, the earth shifts. The trees whirl about them in their own private storm, and they ride on.

She doesn’t know how long they ride through the spinning forest, but when the blur falls away from the leaves and they emerge from the settling trees, the sun is burning overhead. They dismount and tie their horses to a dead tree at the edge of the town, next to an abandoned well. She can hear the clanging of swords and the shouting of men before she can see them, and they overlap with the screaming looping without end in her ears until she starts to scrabble at her head and hair, trying to tear the noises free from her skull. Merlin eases her down and soothes her, disentangling her fingers from her hair before she can start pulling her curls out by the chunks.

“We have to go,” she croaks, once she can hear herself again. “It’s noon, Merlin. It’s noon,” she chants.

He drags her up from the ground and keeps one hand around her wrist—for her own good or for the town’s, she does not know. She tugs him along, following the screaming. War has haunted Camelot for years, but in Kesteven, it hunts. The air reeks of blood and viscera and putrid, rotting things. They are lucky it is no longer high summer. The air would have been thick and breeding with flies. Their boots sink into the waterlogged ground as they pick their way along the edge of the river.

The fall sun gleams overheard, dazzling, with the promise of colder days. The city about them is razed. In the distance, bright steel flashes against dark armor. A man grunts in pain, a man she knows. “There,” she gasps, pointing to the knot of Southron soldiers whirling about around a figure in a red cloak.

Arthur crumples to the ground from the force of a blow, and Merlin screams.

The words pouring from him grate against Gwen's ears, sharp enough to make her feel like she is bleeding. He slams his hand on the ground, and the river seethes and boils. Beneath them, the earth splits and keeps splitting still, a gaping maw opening wider and wider as it races towards the burned bridge, swallowing the half the fighters in Southron armor like a hungry beast before they can come down on Arthur’s body. Gwen hears herself scream too, at the lives smothered in the ground, but then the wind roars between the ruined towers, drowning out whatever sound she might have made.

Arthur pushes himself upright. He looks like he has seen death, or a doom more fearful. The soldiers left alive turn from Arthur’s bleeding form to them, raising their swords and spears with fearful hands, and Gwen draws the knife at her waist and hefts it. Her vision did not go this far. It has been years since she last used a real blade with intent, but it is not something she can ever forget. Merlin steps between her and the soldiers and lifts hands filled with fire. The air around him crackles.

“Stand down,” someone shouts.

Gwen freezes. Her dreams are already bleeding into her waking hours. Why should this not also happen? The Southron fighters hesitate as Morgana rushes into view, armor clinking, her black sword in hand. “Stand down,” she repeats, ripping her helm off so they can see her clearly. “My order to fall back was given a candlemark ago. You shouldn’t even be here.”

“But—my lady—” one of them starts, gesturing back at Arthur’s wounded form. "We saw him without defense—"

"Clearly, he’s not so defenseless," Morgana snaps. "The king's sorcerer is poised to slaughter you. Fall back while you still can."

Her soldiers bow and obey, filing off to join their fellows on the other side of the town. The four of them are left alone. Morgana bows smoothly to each of them, her cloak billowing about her in the wind. “My king. My Lady Guinevere.” She sheathes her sword. “My Lord Emrys. How many of mine did you just kill?”

Merlin whips about and slashes through the air. The jet of flame that shoots from his fingers is batted aside with a flick of Morgana’s hand, and he raises his palm to the sky, calling lightning from the cloudless noon. Gwen clamps her hand down on his shoulder and shouts for him to stop, but she can feel the current building and building in the around them—

“Stand down, Merlin.”

The storm building about him abates at Arthur’s command. “She already spared me once.” The king clamps his teeth down on a hiss of pain and bites out, “I will still fight with honor.”

The light drains from Merlin’s eyes now, leaving them teary. Arthur does not look at him. “Go, priestess,” he says instead. “As recompense.”

Morgana goes still. Her eyes dart to Gwen for a split fraction of a moment, before she turns away and bows. “As you wish, my king.”

She leaves then, donning her helm and returning to the skirmish. Arthur waits until she is gone before forcing himself to his feet. Merlin rushes to help him, but is stopped by Arthur’s sword, drawn quicker than Gwen's eyes can follow to point at Merlin’s throat. The king's face is shuttered and flat. His hand does not waver.

“Did you think that sharing my bed would save you?” Arthur asks softly.

Merlin gazes at Arthur. Gone is his elemental power from before, his great and terrible incantations. He is small now, and wordless, and makes no effort to shield himself. Arthur's arm gives in the quiet. The point of the blade drops from Merlin's neck, falling to clatter against the ground in his unsteady grip.

Gwen holds out her hands in a gesture of supplication, approaching them with careful steps. “Arthur, he just saved your life,” she shouts. “He’s done more for you than you will ever understand—”

“What I _understand_ ,” Arthur enunciates, “is that you are a sorcerer who has been hiding the truth of his character from me for years. I trusted you,” His voice cracks. “I trusted you, Merlin, and you—you’re—” 

He breaks off, unable to finish the thought, and Gwen knows why—because Merlin’s loyalty is his greatest grace and his greatest flaw, and the wandering planets would sooner disobey the laws of their central star than Merlin betray Arthur. Gwen steps between Merlin and the king, pushing Merlin behind her. “You’re a fool if you decide to kill him,” she snaps. Merlin had said that she was turning into Morgana. She might as well make that true. 

She slowly lifts her hands into the air, and Arthur staggers back when sparks fly from her fingers.

“And if you kill him,” Gwen pronounces with care, “you will have to kill me as well. Because I was the one who told him to come here.” 

"Gwen—" 

She hadn't known that the single syllable of her name could contain so much guilt until Merlin says it. Gwen cuts across him before he can say more than that. “I saw your death in a dream. I have magic, Arthur.”

Gold floods into her eyes, and she can feel them burning. In that moment, Arthur's face is filled with pain—from his wound, from watching the two of them, so much that reckoning escapes her. They all stand in utter stillness, and Gwen searches and searches for something else to say, but she cannot find anything else worth saying. The rasp of metal on metal as Arthur sheathes his sword is deafening. She flinches like the sound was a blow. He takes one faltering step back, and then another, hand pressed to his wound, heading towards the forest the best he can.

“You’re wounded.” Merlin stretches out his hand in vain. “Arthur—let us help you—”

“ _Don’t touch me._ ”

Arthur is panting from the pain, his every breath audible even with the space between them. “I am going back to the base camp,” he grits out. “I can make it to the sentry posting and call for help. I do not require your aid. Both of you need to leave, now.” His voice falters. “Before I change my mind.”

“Arthur—” Merlin breathes.

“Go back to Camelot,” the king commands. “Or don’t. I—don’t care.” His face twists. Blood is seeping from between his fingers now. “But I don’t want to see either of you again unless I order it.” 

He limps away, and they can only watch. Merlin is frozen in motion, his hand straining for the king, but Arthur doesn’t so much as look back. The last thing he says to them is half-eaten by the wind, but she can understand it all too well: _You should have let them kill me._

Gwen leads Merlin back along the riverbank, around the burned houses and the scattered armor of dead men. Her head is no longer filled with the clamoring of the future, but she does not know if the quiet is any better. When they get back to the horses, Gwen unties her pony and scratches idly at her mane. She realizes that Merlin isn’t next to her and turns around to see him kneeling on the ground, shoulders bowed. She ties her horse up again and sits down next to him, wrapping her arms around him. He shies away.

“Don’t do that,” he mutters. “Not after how I treated you.”

Gwen sighs. “I need it too, Merlin. It’s not just for you.”

Little by little, he relaxes into her hug, resting his head on her shoulder. She holds him and feels him shake, as he had trembled with the force of lightning bare moments ago, and she lets herself start shaking too. In the distance, there is the shouting of men, and the clashing of swords.

“We need to get out of here,” she says, and he nods. She has to haul him off the ground.

He teeters on his feet once upright. “Shit,” he groans. “Shit.” He scrubs his hands over his cheeks, wiping the wetness from them the best he can, and when he looks at her, there is neither fear nor pity in his eyes. “Gods, Gwen—I’m—so sorry.”

“It’s alright,” she tells him. Neither of them believe her, but it’s all they can do. 

They do not arrive back in the citadel until the ink-dark hours of the night. He sits side-by-side with her in her little room, their knees and elbows knocking together, and they do not say anything until the dawn breaks. The clatter of horse hooves in the courtyard below startles Gwen from her slipping doze, and she and Merlin rise to stand at the windows and watch as a messenger rides in. They can hear him shouting the new tidings even through the glass: _Camelot surrendered. Kesteven has fallen. Kesteven has fallen._

_There are those who would say that it was destined. There are those who would say that it was fate. And they will say that to damn me and forgive me both. But these are all lies._

_I chose you, Ygraine. No destiny decided that for me._

The knights ride back into Camelot four days later with their pennants lowered. Gwen doesn't go out to meet them. She can't afford to make a scene, not now, so she stands at the window and watches as they dismount. Relief surges through her when she sees Arthur—moving stiffly but still moving, favoring his right side but incontestably alive. She dreams of him dying from night to night, and though those dreams feel as normal as night terrors can, she still wakes up screaming. He now refuses help from any of his men as he climbs up the grand steps, and they file into the castle behind him. After the men vanish behind the double doors, she paces around the antechamber, furiously batting the white shrouds about with little breezes from her hands. The wind ruffles the flowers she has just changed, scrounged from the few weeds hardy enough to bloom in the fall. She doesn’t want to start packing. That seems too much like giving up, and Camelot is her castle, her city, her kingdom. She has as much right to live in its bounds as any lord of the land.

There is a knock on her door. She jolts before composing herself, brushing dust off of her kirtle. If she’s called before the council for a trial, she won’t be caught unprepared. “Come in,” she calls, smoothing her hands over her skirt.

Elyan steps in. He is disheveled, old rust-colored dust stuck underneath his nails and the spaces between the links of his armor. He blinks in confusion at the sight of her in her formal dress, knife strapped to her waist, hair precisely braided. “Gwen?” he asks. “Are you going somewhere?”

The question makes her start laughing. Elyan knows her well enough to rush forward when she does, catching her and holding her close. His mail is heavy on her shoulders, but she doesn’t care, letting him rock her back and forth like a skiff in the ocean tide. “I knew it,” he whispers. “I thought—I was on sentry duty two days ago, and I thought I saw Morgana riding past with one of her men, but then I realized it was you and Merlin. And then Arthur came back to camp with a wound in his side, looking like he’d seen a ghost—” he trails off. “You—were the ones who saved him, right? Not the ones who—”

She nods into his neck. He is sweaty and reeks of grime, but she does not draw away. She cannot even bring herself to grudge his question. “We saved him,” she mutters. “For all the good that’ll do for us.”

Elyan strokes her hair, tucking a stray tendril back into its braid. “We were divided between the north and west walls then,” he tells her, talking as much to soothe her as to pass on the story. He’s always been good at that. She was the one who shouted and screamed at princes. He was the one who saved apples to sneak to her while she was in the dungeons. “From what I know, the king was leading the squadron on the north wall, with volunteers from the city and some of our knights. They were picked off by Morgana’s mercenaries, and he was trying to hold the line.”

“He shouldn’t have.” She hasn’t stopped seeing it when she lies down to sleep—Arthur’s head being hoisted in the air, his body limp on the bloody ground. “He was going to die. He was supposed to die. Elyan.” She tastes sick in the back of her throat whenever she thinks of it. “I—I saw him—”

Elyan’s hands pause. “Gwen,” he asks slowly, “what do you mean by seeing him die?”

She stills. "I—had a dream," she says, but it sounds weak, even to her own ears.

Elyan has spent a decade travelling around Albion. He can read a room the way scribes can read a page of a sacred text, grasping not only the obvious meaning pushed to the surface but also the things lurking beneath. He can trade with high lords and priests and midwives and everyone in-between because he understands what people want, and what they say when they cannot bear to speak the truth. He was the one who taught her how to play dice, and how to gamble. Between the two of them, they can rob a whole tavern blind.

Elyan's hands resume their soothing motions. "When did you find out?"

"When Morgana brought Lance back." Gwen doesn't bother trying to lie to him. She lets her eyes flutter shut. If only the world would disappear so easily when she closed her eyes. "She told me then."

She can feel him nod before asking, in that same level tone, "Why didn't you tell me?"

Of all the questions he could've asked, he had to ask that one. It would be easier if he were angry at her, or if there were shock in his words, or disgust, anything other than the open acceptance she can feel from him, clear as the shift of the seasons. It would've been easier, somehow, if she had thought he would hate her for it—because if she had a fear so coherent, there would at least be a reason for her not to tell him, when the truth has far less to do with reason, and far more to do with habit.

"I don't blame you for it," he says. "But I'd—like to know why."

"Because—" she trails off. Because one thing had led to another, and she cannot remember those hot months between summer and fall without wanting to weep at all that has been lost, and she hates weeping. Because she doesn't want to bring him down with her. Because she is too used to secrets now, too used to hiding and too used to lying. “—you're a knight, Elyan, you’re bound by the knight’s code to follow the king’s law—”

“I don’t give a damn about the king’s law,” Elyan hisses with a sudden vehemence. “You’re my sister, Gwen. You’re better than anyone I know.” Slow horror dawns on his face as he starts to pull away. “Brigit’s burning hells, did you think I’d turn you in?”

Gwen slumps. “No. Never.” She pauses. “But I didn’t want to put you in a position of—”

“Choosing between you and the law?” Elyan yanks her close again and holds her even tighter. “If it’s a law that tells me to burn you, then it’s a law that shouldn’t exist.”

Her hands come up to hug him back, and they stand like that for a long moment, the only two living among the shrouded dead. "Do you remember the stories Father told you about Mother?" Elyan mutters into her hair. "How clever she was at the forge, how skilled her eye used to be—"

"—how she could make a sword that never lost its edge, and the finest of keys for a high lady's chest," Gwen recites in unison with him. Her father had told the same stories so often that there is an imprint of them in the lining of her lungs, where she sometimes imagines Ammaline speaking. 

"Have you ever wondered why that was?"

Gwen never has. When she was younger, it was because she thought her mother a goddess, no less brilliant than Brigit and no less fierce than Ancasta. As she grew older, she realized that her mother was only mortal, and her father as well, and she could not fault him for forging a past more beautiful than the present. 

"Father made me swear never to tell you." Elyan studies her for a moment. She wonders, frivolously, for the first time in a long time, if she looks like her mother. Or if Elyan's memories of Ammaline are so distant that after so many years, she has started to look like Gwen. 

"I don't remember her well enough to miss her like he does, but I still remember," he says. "I was too little to understand then, but he was—terrified. There were so many little girls who burned that summer, even those with the loosest connection to magic, and you—we’d never seen you use any sort of powers, but even then, I think we knew deep down, you have a little bit of magic in you."

She wishes he had told her. She might have known about herself earlier, had she known about Ammaline. Or word might have gotten out, ferried to the old king's ear by the wings of rumor, and she would have died on the pyre for the sins of her mother. Magic can be a curse or a blessing, but something beneath her ribs aches at the way her brother says the word, laden with the memory of long days spent running through the forest seeking private miracles, of the brazen hopes only children can have. 

"You sap," Gwen mutters, and he laughs.

"I should go change now," he tells her, rubbing at the griminess on his neck. He frowns at the flakes of blood which come off on his fingers. "Gwen—should I be ready for something? Arthur knows, right? And he hasn't lopped your head off."

Gwen shrugs her shoulders. "He told us to come back here and await his summons. Hence—" she gestures at her formal dress, which she has donned for the last three days, "—this."

"If he decides to execute you, he's going through me." Elyan's voice is mild in the way that signals his most hell-bent moments, and Gwen has to hug him one more time before letting him go.

Telling Imogen is easy in comparison. They are sewing in their room the next day, mending the thick woolen vests the knights wear to train in the wintertime, when suddenly there is a downpour. Fat drops of rain clatter on the roof tiles, and almost without thinking, Gwen glares up at the bay windows. They slam shut as if in a mighty wind.

"Can I do that now?" Imogen asks without skipping a beat. 

Their door is closed and locked. If she is exiled in the next sennight, or fortnight, or after however long a reprieve the king decides to give her, she will leave Camelot having lived to her fullest for a time. Gwen nods at her, and Imogen snaps her fingers and says the spell Gwen had tried to learn. The candles tucked into the corners of the room spring to life, and Gwen returns to patching the old vests, something warm building inside of her chest.

She becomes a maid again—no more, no less. Her days are spent mending wall-hangings and bedsheets and supervising the scullery girls as they scrub all the old soot from the smaller second hearths the castle only uses in winter. The chambermaids let her gossip with them because she was one of them long before she was anything of Arthur’s. They give her flowers and tonics, muttering their sympathies and pointedly telling her which stablehands and laundresses are sweet, and kind, and unattached. The other, higher denizens of the castle stop treating her so kindly after Arthur's coldness becomes known. Merlin fares no differently; the whole of the citadel knows that he is no longer the king's manservant, and rumor about a disfavored servant can never be kind. He stays in Gaius’ rooms most days, barely leaving for meals. Gwen can hardly blame him for it. Half the conversations she overhears make her want to gnash her teeth nowadays, but she still listens avidly, and cannot help but slump in relief each time when she ascertains that there is—as of yet—no talk of magic and betrayal. No rumors of the truth.

The next time the council is convened, the king’s guards bar her from entering the chamber. When Gwen circles back to Morgana's chambers that same afternoon, there is a page in royal colors standing outside of the main doors, the same boy she had helped with the wine pitcher. The sight of him makes her feet falter. "Does the king have a message for me?" she asks. 

"Aye." Elis clasps his hands behind his back and recites, "His majesty would like to remind the maid Guinevere of his request regarding his summons."

Damn it all. His guards must have told him that she requested entry—or he had known that she would try. But how could she not? It is not only kings and knights who are affected by the affairs of the kingdom. "And?" she prompts when he doesn't continue.

"And—nothing," Elis finishes uncertainly. "That's all his majesty told me to tell you. Were you expecting something else?"

A court date. Dismissal and banishment from Camelot. An official demotion back to being a scullery maid. A pyre outright, if Arthur intends to be a king so unyielding. Something, anything, would be better than these empty formalities. She would understand his rage, understand his hurt, but this—it's like he doesn't know her at all. She has known him since her tenth name-day, and now they are no more than strangers. 

"No," Gwen tells the page. "You may go now." 

Elis starts to bow to her before he stops himself. He gives her a little wave instead and trots off down the stairs. She enters Morgana's chambers, staring for a moment at the ghostly figures inside, and then spins on her heel and leaves again.

The warmth of dusk lights along the castle corridors as she makes her way to the apothecary's rooms. Gwaine is there, leaning against Gaius’ door as though standing guard. He starts at the sound of Gwen's footsteps, holding his shoulders stiff and fearful, bracing against something she cannot see. His voice is too cheery when he informs her that it is the knights' tavern evening, and he wanted to see if Merlin would join them, and that he would've been happy to drink with him somewhere else if Merlin wasn’t comfortable being around his majesty, and that it's hardly fair for the king to get all of Merlin’s friends in the divorce—

Gwen regards him carefully as she listens. He knows. He speaks of nothing, but he knows. Open secrets are stacked kindling, begging for flint and steel, and though Gwaine is a brash man, he is still a good one. Arthur's men all swear an oath to Camelot when they are knighted. Some, like Leon, hold their allegiance to the crown most dear. Others—like her brother, like Gwaine—hold the people above the crown. 

The act of confession becomes easier with practice. It is on the tip of her tongue, to tell him more, but she bites it down. She doesn't want to put him in more danger than he already is, and split the thread of his allegiance even further, even though he has already made it clear where his loyalties lie. It is treason to have knowledge of sorcerers, and treason more to protect one, a sin of loyalty. And treason still more to be one—the sin of the mother passed on to the daughter, the sin of being born. May the gods spit in their eye, the mortal who first thought to brand life as sinful.

She bids Gwaine a good evening as he heads off. Merlin looks up from his codex at her knock on his door. His floor is covered in chalk and ochre sigils, intricate as the embroidery on a high lady's dress. "Gwaine's worried about you," she says, picking her way over the sigils without smearing any of them. She sinks down to sit next to him in a pile of kirtle.

"Gwaine can worry all he wants," Merlin says flatly. "I'm not going anywhere with him. I can't let him be seen with a dead man."

"You're not a dead man."

“Not yet.” He pauses. “I need another week, to make sure these'll hold when I die.”

 _When_ , he says. Not _if_. Gwen squints down at Merlin's codex. She can make out some of the script on the pages in his hands; they lay out the basics of long distance warding and protection spells, telling him how to hold things dear, even when they are distant. Gwen hasn't been sleeping well of late, but she would bet every mark she has earned in her life that Merlin has slept even less, planning to protect his king even from beyond the grave.

"He won’t," Gwen murmurs. “I know it. He would be a fool if he tries to burn us.”

"No. He wouldn't." Merlin crumbles a piece of chalk in his hands. "He would be Camelot's king, and his father's son." His voice wavers. "And I have made my peace with that."

He hasn't. No one living or breathing would. It is his devotion she is hearing, not his conviction.

It is nearing the dinner rush. Gwen goes down to the kitchens to get food for them both. Hilda is busy in the pantries, organising the castle's stores of cured venison and boar. The apprentice whom Gwen asks for food hands her two plates of bread and sweet parsnips, and a jug of old cider gone sour. Gwen ducks her head and thanks her before hurrying away, balancing the crockery the best she can without a tray. Half her life has been spent in this castle's service. She'll walk herself into the seventh hell before she lets anyone sneer at her for struggling with plates in the hallway.

When she gets back, Merlin takes the jug from her before she can drop it over the sigils. He sniffs at the liquid, eyes widening at the smell. Gwen sits down on the floor, at the edge of his half-finished lines. "The parsnips are still good, though," she says, pushing a plate in his direction as she starts eating from the other.

Merlin is the one to brave the pitcher after he finishes his food. "Are you sure this is cider?" he asks, squinting at the inside of the jug.

"That's what they gave me."

"It's vinegar with dreams of a better life."

She concedes the point with a grimace. Merlin glances over to the closed door to his rooms, then back down at the cider. He takes a deep breath before tapping his fingers against the side of the jug, muttering under his breath. The liquid shimmers for a moment before it subsides. 

"I've never done this before," he admits as he hands it to her.

"Done what, make spirits sweeter?" Gwen takes an experimental sip of the cider and hums in approval at the honeyed heat of it. "Not even back in Ealdor? Or at the tavern? The ale there is pigswill."

"No, that I've done a lot." He toasts her with the jug when she hands it back to him. "But—never with someone else watching."

They sit shoulder to shoulder against his pallet and drink until there is a bare finger's breadth of spelled cider left at the bottom of the jug. Gwen feels warm and hazy when she nudges Merlin's arm. 

"Thank you," she says. "For trusting me." Her lips twitch. "You know how much I hate old cider."

Merlin snorts. His misery is writ clear all over him, made even clearer by the spirits. "If I burn in the square tomorrow—at least I'll drink well tonight." He suddenly cumples against her. "Promise me you'll run, Gwen," he mutters into her hair. "Promise me—once the guards come, let me face them, promise me you'll run—"

"I'm not leaving you," Gwen says hotly. "Not for pardon, and not for coin. Not even if Brigit herself lit the way to the kingdom of the gods for me." She tugs him up from her shoulder and guides his face towards her. "And we are not going to die, Merlin," she says, enunciating with care. "Arthur isn't going to execute us. He won't. I know it."

"Then why hasn't he called us back yet?"

Gwen takes a gulp from the jug she considers her answer. "Imagine you were living in a castle," she says at last. "The most beautiful castle you could ever imagine, but it's all you've ever known, because they never let you step out the door. And then one day, the stones start to rumble. And you realize that it's crumbling around you." She shakes her head. "He's scared, Merlin. Not of us, I think. Not even of what we are. But—of what we mean." 

She fishes out a kerchief from her pocket and thrusts it in Merlin’s direction. "And he's too good a man to kill the people he loves out of fear, no matter how loudly his father clamors in his head. He's not going to burn us."

Merlin gestures for the cider instead. "I'd stay," he says between sips. "Even if he tries." 

"I know. I think I would, too."

He passes her the last of the drink. "I have the excuse of being besotted, Gwen. What's yours?"

She finishes the cider as she thinks of the sorcerers drowned and cut down whose bones paved the high stone way. Of Camelot's people dying, and all the women who burned in the square, and all the things she has borne in the name of loyalty. 

She can't leave Camelot. Not when there is so much left to do.

"Stubbornness," Gwen decides out loud, setting the jug aside with a flourish. "And pride."

Merlin's grin is unhappy, but it tugs at his flushed cheeks nonetheless. "You two—really are a pair, aren't you?"

"I’d like to think that he learned it from me," Gwen lets her head drop against the side of Merlin’s pallet with a _thunk_. "Which is how I know it's an act." 

Merlin curls against her, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her tight. She lets her eyes drift shut as she cards her fingers through his hair. “If it’s exile—” he starts. “If it’s exile, I can pretend to leave but then come back under a glamor. Or a shifting potion. It’d be hard to maintain, but I can stay in the lower town to watch over him, my wards can stretch that far. Or I can stay in the forest and come in once a fortnight to make sure all the protection holds up. Or—”

“Or you can go to the druids for a year or two, and they’ll take you in and help train your magic.” They are neither the running kind, but it makes her half-sick nonetheless, the thought of his life being consumed by his devotion. “It needn’t be permanent. Or go to any town, even if it’s only for a few months. You’re a court-trained physician, Merlin, they’ll be glad to have you. And it’s not so bad, you know,” she adds. “Loving someone far away, on the other side.”

She feels Merlin laugh. It is a somber sound. “I’ll take your word for it,” he says. “I have to stay. I can’t leave. There isn’t anywhere else for me, Gwen, I look at him, and—I see my world.”

Gwen slings her arm around his shoulders. The grand expanse of the world encompasses infinitely more than any one woman or man, no matter how beloved they are, but no one on half a jug of strong drink is in the mood to listen to such logic. “Do I need to get more wine for us?” she asks, more fond than teasing. "If you're going to get all poetic on me."

“Maybe.” He gestures vaguely at her. “You’re only maudlin when you’re well and truly sodden, and I don’t want to be maudlin alone.” 

He is not alone. He has Gwaine, who is willing to risk treason against the crown to drink with him, and Gaius, and Elyan, and her. She hauls him close and holds him, to show him that there is another beating heart in the room.

Gwen goes to get a second pitcher sometime after the sun sets. Merlin turns the dreg-filled wine into herbed mead, and they sit together on his floor and share the pitcher along with stories about the ones they hold in their hearts. Gwen tells Merlin about the feast they had held for Morgana’s seventeenth name-day, and how the two of them had snuck out early and gone to lie in the meadows to watch the stars. Morgana had an affinity for star-watching; she knew all the motions of the planets, and the names of the beasts that were drawn in the constellations, and Gwen had spent that whole night gazing at her lady as she gazed up at the stars. Merlin tells her in turn about Arthur, his sweet tooth, his morning grumpiness, the way he always asks for a token before going into any tourney or skirmish. Gwen lets Merlin in on the havoc Arthur and his sister used to wreak at banquets, back when they were both allowed to be children still. Those days seem as bonfire tales to Gwen. She sometimes thinks she had only heard of them, somewhere far away.

It doesn't take long for the mead to vanish between the two of them. Their limbs grow clumsy from the spirits, and Merlin's careful sigils get smeared all over his floor in their earnest gestures. Chalk dust clings to Gwen's hands and hair, but she pays it no need as the hours wear on and the stories they tell grow more heavy. She doesn't want to stop talking. She doesn't think she can. Careful silence is all she has known since the summer, and now she can let it go—how much she misses Morgana, and how much she would give to have her back, and how much she wants—

“—just to shield her, Merlin,” Gwen hears herself declare as she throws her hands wide. Even while sitting, she teeters from her enthusiasm, but Merlin catches her before she can fall, hugging her close. He is warm and the only thing in the room holding still, so she slumps against him. “Even if I can’t forgive her. Even if I’m still so angry at her on some days that the words get stuck in my throat, I still want to protect her from everything and anything the world might put in her way. But—that would belittle her. And the world.” Somewhere between the start of her declamation and the present, they’ve started sliding downwards, but neither of them try to fight it. Gwen continues, “And I never, ever want to belittle her, or the world. So I wait. And I watch. And I trust her to make her own choices, even if I don’t trust in them. That's how much I love her.”

“Is that what love is to you?” Merlin asks. They are lying in a heap on the floor now, smudged sigil marks spiralling around them like wings. “Waiting and watching?"

"What else can it be?"

“I dunno.” He blinks at her. "It just seems—awful lonely.”

“I’ll hold her one day,” Gwen swears. “But only after we’ve both chosen.” She pauses, rubbing at the chalk beneath her fingers she mulls over his question. "What's love to you?"

"Protecting." His words rumble beneath her cheek, where she rests her head on his shoulder. "Shielding."

"You take the blow, so he doesn't have to." Gwen lifts her fingers to her face, examining the dust on them. "That doesn't seem any less lonely."

Merlin doesn’t answer for a long time. “I don’t understand how you do it, Gwen,” he mutters into her hair. “I can’t see him hurt. I can’t bear it.”

"But you can't protect him forever, either." Her voice is soft. "Least of all from himself."

"I have to." 

Gwen can only listen as Merlin continues, "From anything and everything. It's my destiny. It's what I have to do, and I've done it for this long, and I’ll keep doing it, and doing it—”

“You helped build his castle.”

It is not an accusation, but Merlin stills nonetheless. She closes her eyes, curling closer to him. One of his hands settles on her shoulder.

“I helped build his castle,” Merlin echoes, and then he is quiet.

Autumn comes in earnest to Camelot, and still the king doesn’t summon them. The days are rainy and chilled as often as they are sunny, and the winds which whirl through the high corridors taste of water and wet stone. Gwen stops dressing for her trial every time she wakes up. She and Merlin take their midday meal together every day, bringing the food back to one of their rooms and talking aimlessly for whole bells, like they did when he first came to Camelot and they were all young and eager for friendship. They sneak slices of the first cured venison meant for the cold seasons, crusted with pepper and poppyseed, and try to bring themselves to laugh at Hilda's indulgent scolding. The cook does what she can for them in the rumor mill, but even she can only do so much. Gwen takes care to enter the kitchens only during the off-hours, when the benches are empty and the other servants are working. 

Despite this, her days are still happier than her nights. Whenever Gwen lies down in the evenings, it takes her hours to fall asleep. She dreams of things breaking, and she wakes up thinking that the rooms are collapsing around her, falling and crashing like a storm. 

This fall, as with every fall, tribute comes in from the villages under Camelot's command. Bushels of crabapples and thrashed wheat; barrels of oats and jars of thick and fragrant honey—all of these are brought to grace the castle's larders, from all the towns in the kingdom. Gwen watches the food-laden wagons cross the courtyard and imagines that she can hear the griping of the council all the way over in her room; the tribute is less than half of what came in the previous year. Camelot must have her glory. Never mind that there is a war, and the villages have their own mouths to feed.

One day, when Gwen is drawing water at the well, a mule-drawn wagon comes into the citadel, bearing plums and apples and a bare barrel of grain. The quartermaster inspects the scanty goods with a sour frown and asks, _Which town sends this tribute?_

 _Helva, my lord_ , the woman driving the mule answers, and then the courtyard is plunged into chaos.

Gwen weaves around the swarming guards and races through the castle in time to stand at one of the servants' windows next to the throne room, crowding around the narrow opening with two other chambermaids and one of the scullery girls. As they watch, the woman is dragged before Arthur by two knights and pushed to her knees.

"Is she a spy for Morgana?" one of the maids whispers.

"No, I heard she rode in from Ismere, I think she's a defector—"

"—she's not a defector, they wouldn't do all this for a defector—"

Gwen hushes them all. The questioning starts.

 _Who are you?_ Arthur is the first to speak. He is almost entirely healed from his wound now; he only shows the barest trace of pain when he moves, and he now sits on his throne straight-backed and proud.

 _Melian of Helva, my king,_ the woman answers, and though she is kneeling, she carries herself every bit as proudly as him.

_What are you doing in Camelot?_

_Granting you our yearly tribute._ _I thought you would want our regard, sire._

 _Last I heard, your town was flying the banner of the sorceress._ Arthur's brow furrows. _Why would you then bring tribute to us?_

_She released us, sire. To choose our allegiance as we will, and to pay tribute as we wish._

Arthur goes still on his throne. Gwen can hear the maids around her take a breath as one, because the youngest among them is no more than thirteen summers and the oldest is two name-days behind Gwen, but they all know how war is supposed to work. They have all stood in the square to listen to the lists of the dead and watched as squadrons came back to the citadel with fewer men than they left with. Land is won by blood. No one surrenders a city so easily. The castle has held its breath since Kesteven, waiting for Morgana's next move, but nothing could have braced them for this.

Melian pushes herself to her feet even though she has not yet been bidden to do so. No one moves to stop her. _We have chosen our allegiance,_ she declares. _And paid you tribute as we see fit. Will you accept it?_

Arthur regards her with a carefully blank expression. _What if I do not accept your tribute, my lady?_ he asks.

 _Then we turn back to the Lady Morgana._ Melian holds her chin high and her shoulders square. _We are a small town; we cannot stand by ourselves. She killed more of us than the last blight, but she also let us choose. Which is more than your Camelot has ever done._

There is an emergency convention of the council. The lords reject Helva's presumptuousness, calling for the woman to burn with practiced viciousness. They’ve done this before, with all the girls tried for witchcraft. Gwen wonders when they first built their language of burning—if this was what they did with Nimueh, when she told them of Ygraine’s fate. Burn the witch. For king and kingdom. 

But the king himself listens to their shouting with a stony non-expression, his eyes fixed on Melian where she stands before them all, cool and unmoved by the words they fling about concerning her town and her character. The only expression she ever reveals is faint surprise when Arthur announces he will accept Helva's tribute. From behind the window grating, Gwen can feel herself break into a smile as the other maids gasp in disbelief.

Uther and his men had brought the towns under his dominion. Maybe Morgana and Arthur will be the ones to let them live.

The emptiness of the white no-world engulfs her with the suddenness of a crashing wave when she falls asleep that night. She reels, gasping from the abrupt flood of nothingness all about her. It is miraculously still, almost painfully so after the fragmented dreams of dust and blood which have filled her nights of late. There is an urgency to the empty landscape, an incessant chant bidding her to come here, here, _here—_

"Gwen?" Morgana shouts from the distance, and suddenly there is a distance, a _here_ and a _there_. She is hurtling over it, across the white of the no ground, unbound hair streaming behind her. "Gwen! Mother above, Gwen, you're still alive—"

She crashes into Gwen from her exuberance, and then crashes through her, the unfettered momentum of her steps driving her to her knees. She lets loose a frustrated scream, slamming her palms on the ground. Gwen wheels around to stare down at her. She has never seen Morgana so desperate for anything, much less—Gwen. 

"Morgana?" Gwen hovers her hands above Morgana's shoulders. "Why are you—"

"Why? Because I thought he might've killed you, that's why," Morgana hisses. "I feared your death. It took every sliver of power the gods have given me to walk away from you, because I knew that was what you wanted, that you be left behind to your king's justice—"

"I'm alive," Gwen rushes to tell her. "He didn't hurt me, Morgana—"

"How do you expect me to believe that? He is a king, Gwen. Camelot's king," Morgana spits. "It has been a fortnight of not knowing whether or not you were still breathing. And now all I have to prove that you are is some—dream apparition we both share, and I—" her voice breaks. "I can't even touch you." She scrabbles at Gwen’s dress, her waist, her hips. “Why can’t I touch you?” she whispers desperately. “Why can’t I feel you? Why aren’t—why aren’t you here?”

“I am here.” Gwen holds her hands as close to Morgana’s face as she can. “I’m alive, Morgana. I swear that to you.”

“I can hope. Gods above, I can hope.” Morgana traces two of her fingers down the back of Gwen’s hands, a touchless kiss. “My brother seemed half in the grave when he surrendered the town, and I thought—I couldn’t know—I didn’t want to ask. I couldn’t. Not in front of them all.” Her lashes are clumpy, her cheeks wet with tear-tracks. “When I tallied the dead, all I could see was your face.”

Gwen swallows, her words sticking in the back of her throat. “Was that why you let the towns go?” she manages to ask.

“No.” Morgana turns away, and her hair falls as a veil in front of her. “Not for you. But I saw your face, and I remembered what you said, and I let them go because I realized—”

She trails off, hiding her face in the folds of Gwen’s skirts, and says, “It’s not worth it.”

Morgana’s exhalation shudders through her whole body. “It’s not. It never was. This—can’t be justice.” Her fingers align with Gwen’s outstretched hands, lace together and slip through, and she crumples. “By the gods, Gwen, I wish you were here. I wish you were with me. What if—what if I’m just dreaming? Or if you’re gone? What if you were never even—”

She trails off, and Gwen has to strain to hear her whisper, “Isn’t that what I deserve?”

“Is that all I am to you, Morgana?” Gwen snaps. She sinks to the ground next to Morgana, cursing the white nothingness that is their dreamworld. They have been coming to this unwaking space for months now, and Gwen has never hated it as much as she does now. “A punishment?” 

She reaches for Morgana, angrily, unthinkingly, and she cannot help the wounded sound that escapes her when her arms pass through Morgana like sunlight through the clear air of morning. Morgana is still crying. Gwen’s thumbs move to brush away her tears with an instinct no fury and no dreams will take from her, and she grits her teeth to keep from gasping when her fingers pass through Morgana's cheeks. Morgana hides her face in her hands, a sob hitching in the back of her throat. Her tears well between her fingers and trickle down her wrists.

“I am here.” Gwen says it like an oath. “Look at me, Morgana. I am here.” 

Morgana lifts her head. Her expression is broken open, a mirror shattered on the ground, and she looks more afraid than Gwen has ever seen her outside of the moments after her nightmares. “Damn what you deserve,” Gwen says. Her words come out in a snarl. "I am not your punishment."

They are close enough that Gwen can see the pulse leaping in the hollow of Morgana's throat. "You've made your choices, Morgana," Gwen pronounces intently. "And now you atone for them, to hell with deserving. We are both still breathing, and while we are breathing, we still have this, and you will not take that away from me." She is torn between begging and commanding as she says, “Now close your eyes.”

Morgana’s eyes fall shut. Gwen sits next to her, tracking the rise and fall of her breaths as they slow. She fills the silence with stories instead of touch, telling Morgana of Camelot in the fall, the maids hanging canvas on the windows and the kitchens filled with the smell of mulling spices, the dyers choosing the colors for winter and the thread being drawn from the cloud-like wool the towns brought in, which will then be woven by the weavers into fabric thick enough to withstand the cold. 

Gwen tells Morgana of the little things, and tries to hold back the things she wants to say—because it took Kesteven, their bitterest battle to date, and the scores and scores of lives poured into the ground there for Morgana to reconsider what justice meant, yet still all Gwen wants to say is that she wants Morgana back. She wants them to walk under the canvas-lined windows together, to inspect the new wool and silk as they once did in her household, and kiss her under the falling leaves. But she cannot. All she can do is make Camelot into a story—a tale of _if_ , of _once_ , not of _when_.

“If you were there—” Gwen breaks off before she can continue. “If you were here,” she corrects herself, feathering her hands through Morgana’s hair. She can imagine how the strands feel from all the years she braided her curls before they went to sleep, but the memory gives her no solace. “If you were here, I would hold you. I would hold you so close, Morgana.”

Morgana starts laughing, and she laughs until her throat sounds as though it has gone dry. Her tears have dried on her cheeks and hands to a shiny salt-gleam. “Gods,” she rasps. “I want to crawl into you.”

It would be a ludicrous thing to say, if it weren’t for how true it is. Gwen knows what Morgana means because she feels much the same—like she wants to press into her until she can’t tell whose hands are whose, to lick at her and taste all the salt of her body, and kiss the breath from her and have the air taken from her in turn. To subsist on that shared breath, and slip inside of her lungs and touch the heart beating inside her chest. To know that she is living. 

“Unlace your tunic,” Gwen decides, leaning forward until she is nearly speaking into Morgana’s mouth. 

Morgana doesn’t look away from Gwen’s face as she brings her hand up and licks between her fingers before gliding them down her neck, lingering on the hollow of her throat, the bird’s-wing spread of her collarbones. Gwen is the one who has to break their shared gaze in favor of staring raptly at the path of Morgana’s fingers as they stroke over her skin. Eyelet by eyelet, she draws the laces from her tunic, hand lingering on the strip of her chest now revealed. 

“If I were here,” Morgana asks, her voice edged with want, “what else would you do?”

She blushes so easily. The red shows up on her skin at the slightest invitation, and she is already pinking now, the color spreading where her blood runs strong. Gwen wants to see more. “I would take your tunic off.”

Morgana’s lips part in a toothy smile. “Ever the strategist, my lady.”

She grasps her tunic by the hem and pulls it over her head in one fluid motion, casting the fabric behind her. Her hair is mussed, and Gwen can’t help but smile at the sight of her pushing her mess of curls back, tendrils sticking to her sweaty temples and cheeks. Gwen's smile turns into something softer and hungrier as she lets her eyes trail lower. Morgana has always been pale, but against the nothingness that surrounds them, she is ruddy, from the shifting muscle of her shoulders to the curve of her stomach and navel.

“What then would you do?” Morgana asks.

Gwen sinks down, pressing her face to Morgana’s chest. “I would touch you,” she mutters, imagining the heat beneath her lips. She lifts her head, hovering her hand just to the side of Morgana’s breastbone, her fingers dark against Morgana’s skin. “Right here.”

Morgana’s hand slides under hers and presses down where Gwen imagines her heart is beating the strongest. Gwen noses up her sternum and her neck, guiding her back to lie on the no-ground and kneeling over her. Her hands are itching from their need to touch, to affirm, but all Gwen can do is ask, “How does it feel?”

“How do you think? Like I’ve run all the way through the darkling woods and back again.” 

Morgana grins, and Gwen does too—she feels like she is alive, then. “Tell me where else you would touch me.” Morgana’s breath comes heavy and fast. “So I can follow.”

“Here.” Gwen slides her hand over and palms Morgana’s breast, and Morgana follows her. “Here,” Gwen says, and she leans down, hovering over her other breast in an open-mouthed kiss, and Morgana’s free hand comes up, pinching her nipple between her nails. "Everywhere." Gwen pulls back enough to watch her as her flush deepens and spreads over her chest under Gwen’s regard.

Morgana blinks open heavy-lidded eyes. “This seems—” her breath hitches, “—rather unfair, right now.”

Gwen's lips are on the verge of brushing against Morgana’s ear. “How cruel of me.” 

Morgana huffs out a laugh and twists at herself harder. The sound turns into a rough groan as she bucks into her own touch. "Let me look at you, my lady," she manages in a strained voice. "Let me—"

Gwen's hands fall to her laces, and she starts undoing her kirtle furiously, shucking the heavy fabric to one side. She is left crouching over Morgana in her shift, and she holds her gaze as she peels the thin linen off, her smile growing as Morgana’s eyes go wide.

She stares at Gwen like she is looking up at the sky that arcs over the world. “I’ve never seen you before,” Morgana says hoarsely.

Gwen remembers the first time she saw Morgana with nothing on her body—they had both been sixteen summers, and Gwen was just promoted to head maid. Gwen had helped Morgana out of her bath and back into her shift and laced her kirtle up with clumsy fingers, wondering what it was that made her so uncertain. It would take her near a decade to untangle the web of her desire, but Gwen can understand it now, with a ringing certainty. The weight of Morgana’s want makes her feel like there is something hot ripping beneath her skin.

“Well—now you are,” Gwen replies, her throat dry. They can look at each other now, though all the span of their kingdoms lies between them. 

"You—" Morgana breaks off dazedly, her eyes hazy with light. "You're beautiful."

Gwen grins at her earnest praise. She follows the path of Morgana’s golden eyes on her body, tracing her fingers over her lips, down her neck, through the sweat beading between her breasts and on her stomach, to tangle in the wiry hair between her legs. Morgana makes a desperate noise in the back of her throat, thrusting her hand out to reach for her. “And you’re too far,” she mutters. “Gwen—I can’t—”

“I know. Gods, I know.” Gwen drapes herself over Morgana, shifting so their faces are as close as they can be. “But I’m here. Listen to me. Follow me.”

Morgana looks like she wants to drink from her. She scrambles to untie her breeches and kicks them down to her ankles, laughing a little at her own hastiness. Her laugh deepens to a groan at her own touch, and Gwen fights to keep her eyes open the whole time she rides her hand, bracing herself on her knees and gazing down at the sight of Morgana breaking open for the second time that night—not from fear, but from sensation. She can’t touch her. She can’t feel her. But she still has what is left, and Gwen hoards every detail she can from the moment so she can savor it in her memory, spin a story to last her through the night. The wet sound of their fingers is loud between them, punctuated by the tandem of their rough breaths. Morgana’s cheeks are splotchy, her eyes glazed and open, and Gwen hungrily catalogues the slickness of her open lips and the noises of pleasure she tries to muffle. She murmurs senseless encouragement when Morgana starts to fall apart, a flash like lightning flooding through her as her mouth goes slack and breathless. When she comes, it is Gwen’s name on her lips, and the sight of that is enough to spur Gwen on to follow her. 

Her braced arm gives out. She tumbles through Morgana like she would through water, the cold shocking through her and ripping the remaining breath from her lungs. Landing on the chilly no-ground jerks her from her haze. She bolts upright and looks down at Morgana, who is lying flat on her back, unmoving.

“Mother damn it all,” Morgana whispers without opening her eyes.

Gwen can only agree to that.

Morgana slowly pushes herself upright. She blinks at Gwen, and Gwen reaches out her hand, stopping just short of her bare shoulder. Morgana slides her fingers up, resting it just shy of Gwen's hand. The silence falls and settles.

"At least we still have this," Gwen says, and Morgana nods quietly. 


	11. That Rarest of Seasons

The harvest moon comes and passes. Camelot's festival is subdued this year. The annual crops are scant because of how few hands there are to gather the bounty of the land, but that wouldn’t normally be enough to dispel the cheer of a festival day. The nobility take any opportunity to celebrate; they would have gladly drained fresh casks of wine to toast a victory against the sorceress, or opened their coffers to mourn the fallen. But the war has turned into no war at all—and that is no cause for celebration. The sorceress is releasing all the towns under her domain so they can choose their own allegiance. Some decide to offer tribute to Camelot. Far more choose to keep the crow-blazoned black flying on their watchtowers. Arthur gives the people of Kesteven that same choice. Most turn their backs on Camelot and make the journey back to their city.

Once a fortnight, Gwen gathers with the other maids in the corridor next to the throne room to listen as Arthur holds his audience with his subjects. After Uther’s mourning banners were lowered, the audience was opened to people of all birth, but even now, few dare to venture—or few have faith in the care of the crown. It is mainly lords who come to supplicate. When the cobbler from the lower town enters, his cap twisted between his hands, the maids break out into excited whispers. Gwen shushes them.

The guards admit the cobbler into the presence of the king. The man steps up to the dais and bows. “Your majesty. I have—a matter that needs your purview.”

“You may speak,” Arthur bids him.

"My son and I—the road is soft from the rain, sire." The cobbler's head is lowered. "And the wagon tracks dig into the mud. We were digging to see if there was stone below."

He breaks off, and Arthur has to prompt him before he finishes, "We found bones, majesty. Old bones, buried beneath the way."

The littlest scullery girl standing with them, whose head can barely peer over the top of the windowsill, gasps. Gwen sets her hands on her shoulders, and she hides her face against Gwen's skirts. She must be imagining monsters crawling beneath their streets, or some horror of undead kings. Gwen had thought the same when she was young.

"We can take them to the grove, sire," the cobbler says. "There needn't be a fuss."

There is a grove outside of the citadel where the sun never shines, no matter how cloudless the day. The great tree at its edge is never in bloom, even in the high days of spring. Gwen had first come across it when playing in the forest with her brother—a clearing filled with half-buried ashy bones, as though from a skirmish against dragons, or an ancient battle. She and Elyan dared each other to touch the bones and skittered away after picking one up, imagining the monsters from which they came. There came a day not too long after she had grown past playing among the trees when another man screamed as he burned in the square, and after the ash was swept up and incense scattered to mask the smell, the guards took the bones away. Though she was close to coming of age, Gwen still had a child's curiosity then, and a child's fearlessness, so she followed the men out to the forest and watched as the bones were thrown into the clearing where she had once run, without even dust to cover them. The guards went back to the citadel without noticing her, and she was sick to her stomach among the trees.

The first who fell in the Purges were buried just outside of the citadel walls, far enough so the presence of the dead did not pollute the city of the living, but near enough to be a reminder. As time wore on, Camelot's citadel spilled out of its first walls. Both the dead and the living became too many. Roads and houses grew over the first burials, and one grave in the forest was dug for the newly dead. Gwen had spent the night after her father's murder in the grove, weeping until her eyes were sore and had no tears left in them. She left a horseshoe there and poured three libations of the best wine she could find into the ground, half-hoping the guards would see her. They sometimes catch people there, performing rites for the dead, and it is treason to mourn a sorcerer. The people who do it are imprisoned for a year, and the guards always clear the grove of whatever brightness they find there, but flowers are still set under the tree after every killing. 

"We just—wanted to make sure you knew," the cobbler finishes, trailing off into nervous quiet.

No one talks about the bones beneath the roads. The rites owed to the dead are the only things the rich and poor have in common; every body is buried with the same prayers to the Goddess, no matter how much precious metal is woven into the shroud. To abandon bodies without their final rites is to deny them memorial—to say that they were not human enough in life to be remembered in death.

Sisters. Mothers. Fathers. Lovers. All of them buried beneath the high way, for the wagons and horses to tread into dust. 

"We will dig up the main road," the king says abruptly. 

Gwen starts. Arthur is staring at the empty distance. His face is devoid of expression when he continues, "Before the ground hardens in the cold."

The cobbler stills. "Sire?" he asks. "What will you—"

It is easy to dishonor the dead, to turn their bodies into symbols of punishment. Living flesh resists. The dead do not. Gwen digs her nails into the window grates and strains to hear what Arthur's proclamation will be. She can feel the groaning stone of the castle above her head, weight immeasurable, and the hundreds of footsteps pressing down on her for each moment she still breathes. 

"We will bury them with the Mother's rites."

Arthur's reply is hoarse, small and raw in the grandeur of the throne room. The tanner is silent, and Gwen is as well, while all the maids start chattering around her. Arthur rises from his throne and descends from the dais with measured steps. He comes within arm's length of the cobbler, who quickly drops into a bow before he straightens again at Arthur's bidding, as openly wary as he can be in the presence of the king.

"The dead deserve their rest," Arthur says. His throat bobs as he swallows. "Thank you. For telling me."

The cobbler drops his eyes. "Thank—you. Sire."

His leaves from the room with another bow in Arthur's direction. He darts a panicked glance towards Arthur one last time before he leaves the chamber.

The maids file off in pairs and groups, muttering among themselves about the king's strange and belated honor. Gwen stays at the window, staring through the punctures in the grates. It is only her now, and the guards, and Arthur. The room is broken in her vision, into white stone and dark wood, red cloaks and a crown, all the things which constitute the picture of a king. She cannot see his face.

"Sire—"

"I did not ask you to speak, Sir Elyan," Arthur grates out.

"But I must." There is the clinking of metal on metal as Elyan takes off his helmet. "It is a noble deed you just offered, sire. You are doing the right thing."

"Am I?" Arthur asks. 

He starts pacing in jerky lines around the chamber, moving in and out of Gwen's patchwork view. The sound of his footsteps is the loudest noise in the room for long, heavy moments.

"They're dead," Arthur bites out at last. He breaks off, as though that one word had taken the strength from him. "And anything I do now—is empty. I—I have been thinking of late. About what my father told me." Gwen isn't sure if Arthur knows he is speaking out loud when he asks, "Were they innocent?"

"They—" Elyan hesitates for a moment. "They were magic users, sire. Condemned to death by the king's law."

"No. I asked—if they were innocent. Not if they were magic users."

"I cannot know that," Elyan says. "Because they are dead."

Arthur laughs abruptly. He turns in Elyan's direction, and she can see a flash of his face, his eyes pleading and wild. "You are a good liar, sir knight. You and your sister both."

Elyan doesn't respond. Arthur turns away. "You—you know," he manages to say. "You know, Elyan."

And he knows, as well. Gwen recognizes the wildness in his eyes. It is what she felt squeezing her lungs like a vise after she saw the guards drop the bones in the grove, when she finally realized the foundations on which her city was raised.

"Aye. I know." Elyan steps forward and reaches for Arthur as if to clasp his shoulder, only to let his hand fall away at the king’s expression. “Do you, sire?”

Arthur struggles with his answer."Has your sister left from Camelot?" he asks abruptly.

"No, sire." Gwen can hear Elyan’s half-smile as he says, "I doubt she would make things so easy for you."

"Sheltering a sorcerer is treason."

The king recites the law by rote, and Elyan turns his back on him. "You and I both know the truth to that," her brother says. "Sire." His words are gentle in the way they often are when there is nothing else he can offer.

Arthur regards him wordlessly. He says at last, "You are dismissed, Sir Elyan."

Her brother's armored soles clank against the floor as he walks away, and the second guard in the room trails behind him, leaving Arthur in the chamber with a solitary knight. Arthur tells him to wait outside of the door, and the final guard obeys, closing the door firmly behind him. The king starts to shake once he is alone in the room, pressing his fist to his mouth to keep from crying out, and Gwen turns away from the window before she can disobey him.

Two and twenty boxes of fine cedar wood are commissioned by the crown that fall, one for each set of bones they find beneath the high way. Children cluster around the road masons and watch with fascination as skulls are pulled from the ground. They are pulled away from the streets by those who know how and why those skills were covered by soil, who shush their questions and try to shield them from what is welling up between the flagstones. On the day Arthur goes to the grove, bearing a torch and beribboned flowers in his hands, the people of the lower town bow and turn away as he passes. Their voices follow in his wake. Gwen slips among the crowd, Merlin at her heels. They go into the forest and between the trees, keeping out of sight of Arthur's guards, dead leaves rattling beneath their feet. Merlin stumbles at the sight of the grove, and Gwen steadies him.

The boxes are already stacked at the edge of the grove, where the ashes and bones start, a burial dug by the gravediggers who are standing under the old tree. Gwen wonders if a king had ever come to this clearing before. A knight sets a brazier down, made of embossed bronze. There is incense inside, and another knight settles a pitcher of wine next to the brazier. They all watch Arthur, waiting.

Arthur lays the flowers on top of the cedar planks. He ties the ribbon around a low-hanging branch of the tree, marking the grove as a holy spot, and pours three draughts of dark wine into the dry ground. The brazier is lit at the touch of his torch, and sweet flame fills the metal. 

"Goddess," he says. His face is turned to the heavens as he takes a ragged breath, and then another. "Goddess," he says again, and his cry echoes around the clearing, though the branches and the leaves clinging to the bark. "Who bears many names, who taught us the arts of sickle and steel, who gave us soft healing and keen mourning, drink with us and hear our song—"

Merlin recites the prayer along with him, eyes fixed on the bones peeking above the ground. Each child in the kingdoms learns the Mother's prayer at festival bonfires and kitchen hearths when they are still too young to understand the difference between their wishes and their reality, and they carry it with them through all the years of their life. Gwen had learned it from her father, who poured cider into his hearth’s ashes every Midsummer and held her and Elyan’s hands as he prayed for Ammaline’s happiness in the land of the blessed and for his children’s health in the land of the living. She has heard it recited by lovers at the bonfires who prayed for their one night to stretch out between the stars, by lords and ladies before their dinner as they drank their fine wine, by Arthur and Lancelot before tourneys as she tied tokens to their arms. By the women and men who burnt in the square, in their final moments, looking up to the unforgiving blue of the sky.

"—bless them," Arthur begs. "Ferry them into your happy lands. Into life—"

 _Life everlasting._ That is the ending of the blessing they recite over the bodies of the dead. The gravediggers now wait for the king to finish, but he never does. They go on without him, burying the cedar boxes in the ground and filling in the grave before they file from the grove and head back to the citadel. Gwen wonders what sort of rumor will be passed through the lower town by nightfall, about the king and his choices. 

"Leave me," Arthur says, without turning to his guards.

"Sire—" one of the knights starts. "You—we cannot—"

"You can."

“And if someone makes an attempt on your life, sire?” the other guard asks, not bothering with euphemism.

“Then you’ll find me here.” Arthur’s reply is faint but just as blunt. Here, in the grave his father made.

The guards leave, the forest ground crackling beneath their wary steps. Arthur stays in the grove until the incense burns into ash. Gwen and Merlin stay too, huddled at the base of the tree that shelters them from view, and the forest looms above them all. When Arthur turns from the grove, he looks about the branches with red-rimmed eyes, searching the trees aimlessly. Merlin looks back, biting on the corner of his mouth to keep his words inside.

They push themselves to their feet and enter the grove after Arthur makes his way back to the castle, his cloak a smear of red in the woods. Gwen stands beside the brazier and warms her hands against the metal. There is ash settled at the bottom of the bowl like new snow. Merlin touches the ribbon Arthur had tied to the tree. He tangles it in his fingers, pressing his forehead against the fabric. The ribbon flares, and Merlin steps away, his hands still sparking.

“The earth will remember them,” he says, and though she understands him when he speaks, she can also hear an echo of a screaming river. 

The forest is cold, for all that the sky overhead is an untarnished blue. Gwen shivers, tucking her hands against her sides, and Merlin draws her close. They hold each other against the wind, and around them, the grove whispers. 

“We should get food now, before the dinner rush,” Gwen announces to Merlin. 

She is taking her break in his room, tying small bundles of moss and clove for him to enchant for protection before tucking them in Arthur’s window sills and beneath his floorboards. Merlin has been practicing a particular protective sigil for the last bell, trying to amplify its power so it would protect the king, even if he should leave.

He blinks up at her, gaze guttering like a candle burnt down to its final mark. His hands are covered in chalk, as they are more often than not nowadays. “What—”

“Food,” she repeats firmly, and drags him up upright. He glares at her once on his feet, and she glares right back. Merlin probably wouldn’t have left his room since they came back from Kesteven, if Gwen weren’t there to prod him about the necessities of living.

Or to remind him that he still is alive, that there is a world outside of his devotion. She finds herself doing this at least once a sennight now, and Kara doesn’t so much as look up as Gwen shepherds Merlin out the door and down the corridor. He starts to move of his own accord somewhere around the stairs. Hilda greets them as they enter the kitchens, pressing trays into their hands. There are poultry pies today, and dried apples, and a scant half-cup of well-watered wine. She’s worried about them.

Gwen catches sight of two figures on one of the benches and steers Merlin in their direction. He hesitates, and she tells him, “You haven’t talked to another soul in near a full month. They’re not going to mock you, Merlin. Trust me.”

Merlin eyes her for a moment before acquiescing with a sigh. Gwen balances her tray in one hand and taps Imogen’s shoulder with the other. “Can we sit here?” she asks, pointing to the empty spots on the bench.

Imogen nods, finishing her bite of apple before she speaks. “Go ahead.”

Judith turns her stare to Merlin for a moment before she nods at him and returns to her methodical dismantling of her portion of pie. Gwen settles next to Imogen and draws Merlin down next to her. He introduces himself with no little awkwardness, and they reply with the same. Gwen starts eating her food. 

“Do you two have plans this evening?” she asks to fill the silence.

“No,” Judith replies. “Do you?”

Only if pacing around an abandoned room and trying not to scream count as plans. “No,” Gwen says.

The quiet settles again. 

Imogen sighs, flicking a hard bit of pastry into the fire. The flame flares, and Merlin flinches. Her mouth loses its hostile twist as she regards him. “Us too,” she says, and she is not speaking of evening plans anymore. Merlin startles, staring at her as if more surprised at the ease of her confession than her confession itself, and she ducks her head. 

“We were just talking about—what the king’s law is, now.” Judith fiddles with the core of her pear. “I don’t know what he’s saying by digging up the road. I thought he’d want to make an example to defectors. Especially now.”

“We can still get out,” Imogen says lowly. “My mother’s sister lives in Sigelai. They can’t stop us from going to family; that’s a legitimate reason for travel—”

“But it’s not visiting family anymore, it’s defection,” Judith strives to speak lower than the crackle of the flames. “And then they’ll have not just one, but two reasons to burn us.”

“What do you think they’re going to do if we stay?” Imogen retorts, abandoning her lover’s carefulness. “Burying the dead from the first Purge is to make us feel safe, so we’ll start living openly. And then they’ll bring the ban down on our heads. The law against magic hasn’t been repealed; they’ll be rooting out magic-users any day now so we don’t run to Morgana by the droves. It’ll be the Purges all over again; we need to get out while we can—”

“Arthur wouldn’t do that,” Merlin breaks out. His eyes are fixed on the fire. “He’s not his father, he wouldn’t do that to you—”

Imogen glances at him with something like pity. “Maybe not to you,” she says gently. She stops his protests with a raised hand and continues, “But we aren’t exactly the two of you, are we?” 

“He’s not Uther,” Merlin repeats. “He’s not.”

Judith snorts under her breath. “Let’s see what he decides to do with us before you say that.”

Merlin finishes his food and leaves without another word. Judith and Imogen stare at his retreating back. “Gwen,” Imogen says slowly, “he’s not going to turn us in to the king, is he?”

Gwen finishes the last of her wine. “The king found out about our magic,” she says. “About a month ago. And we were told to—wait for his summons.” She forces out a laugh. "We're both a little tense."

Imogen doesn’t hesitate. “If you need it, we can be out of the citadel and headed for Sigelai by dawn tomorrow,” she declares.

Judith pauses for a moment before nodding in slow affirmation. Gwen’s chest feels too full as she looks at the two of them, who had clung to Camelot out of necessity and obstinacy, and never let the castle wear them thin, no matter how hard it presses on their lungs and bones. “I’ll be okay,” she tells them, squeezing their hands briefly. “You said it yourself, I don't think he would. He hasn’t tried anything yet, and this is my kingdom as much as it is his. I won’t leave until they make me.”

Judith cracks a smile—a hard twist of her lips, but only edged by bitterness. “Spoken like a true lady, my Lady Gwen.”

Gwen feels herself reddening as Imogen nudges her shoulder. “He hasn’t killed you, though. And he’s remembering the dead. Maybe this means—” 

She doesn't say it out loud. No matter their station, they all grew up in the shadows of Uther’s hate, in the castle he raised. The first brush of light is a fearful thing, when all they have known is that gloom. “We can hope,” Gwen says instead. She bids Imogen and Judith a good evening and goes to find Merlin again. He is sitting on the floor in his chambers, jabbing at the ground with a piece of chalk.

“Why do you think he hasn't said anything?” Merlin asks without looking up. "About the dead."

Gwen settles down next to him and shakes her head. It is one thing to face the dead. It is another to face the living.

"You told me you believed in him," Merlin says, almost accusingly. "That he wouldn't kill us." 

He breaks off, and then adds, "Do you think they're right?"

"I hope they aren't." Gwen pauses. “Would you keep protecting him, even if they are?”

Merlin starts sketching something out with messy, frantic lines and does not answer her. 

When she goes back to Morgana’s chambers, it is past nightfall. The days have been growing shorter, swiftly so. She lights a candle and stares down at her small vase of flowers, still sitting on top of the covered main table. The blooms are so wilted that they can barely stand in the vase—a stem of lavender, three violets, a single daisy, all shrivelled from the chill of autumn. She wonders what flowers she will put in the vase, once winter comes. Maybe some sprigs of evergreen. The air in the room is stale. She can still smell the smoke from the last time she set the floor on fire.

“I hear Camelot's dead can sleep at last,” Morgana tells her by way of greeting when she arrives in their dream. “What is your king doing, my lady?”

Morgana's hair is bound around her head today, a crown of black braids woven with silver, and her black sword is strapped to her waist. She is every inch the king she has always wanted to be. Gwen steps close to her, until their noses almost touch.

"Ismere," Gwen says instead of an answer, outlining Morgana’s braids with her hand. “Astolat. Wenwood. Sigelai. Kesteven. What are you doing, Morgana?” she asks in return.

“I’m letting them choose.”

Gwen smiles. “I believe you, my lady.” She leans closer. “But I also know that you are building your kingdom. Soon you will have enough to raze us with impunity.”

Morgana trails her hand over Gwen’s face, and Gwen follows the path of her kisses with her fingers—temple, mouth, chin. “I will not raze a city of my own,” she murmurs. Her voice is earnest. "I told you, Gwen, I can’t. Not anymore. Even if that means I will not win this war." 

Gwen brushes her lips over Morgana’s cheek, and Morgana cradles that one spot with her own hand, stroking over her skin. "I am glad to hear that."

"If I am to rule, I will rule without cruelty." Morgana’s eyes are soft. “But it remains—I do intend to rule. I won’t surrender.”

Gwen grins wryly. She expects nothing less. When she reaches for Morgana, Morgana meets her as she always does. 

They lie on the white of the no-ground afterwards, propped on their sides so they can look at each other and keep pretending. Morgana has pulled her curls from their braids, and there are hairpins and fine silver chains scattered all about them on top of their tunics and shifts. Gwen will never tire of seeing Morgana like this, sweat-flushed and marked with her own carmine, her face open.

“What about you?” Morgana asks. Her words are sudden in the quiet. “What is it you intend?”

Gwen runs her fingers through the ends of Morgana’s hair. She should be glad that they are far enough beyond the assumptions and bladed accusations of before for Morgana to ask so bluntly. “I—intend nothing. It is the job of kings, to have intentions. I only obey my kingdom.”

“I don’t think I can even call that lying,” Morgana says fondly, before a note of pleading enters her voice. “Talk to me, Gwen. Let go.”

“I just did. Several times.”

Morgana snorts. “Not like that.” She shifts closer to her, until they nearly touch and Gwen is trembling from the need to feel her. She never can. “You have this—weight—building and building behind your eyes. Every time I look at you, I see that burden. You need to let go.”

“I have nothing to let go.” Gwen turns away. “I—have nothing left.”

“Horseshit.” Morgana sits up, and Gwen follows, bracing her hand on the no-ground. Morgana sets her hand near Gwen’s, and Gwen imagines the weaving of their fingers, skin against skin. Their fingers are on the verge of touching, and the need to cross that titanic space sings in her.“I remember—when we were little, you threw aside the presents I gave you for your name-days and yelled at my brother whenever he did something that you didn’t like. And I remember being in awe of you, because I would never dare to do that as the king’s ward, and you were a serving girl, and you did dare. Where is that girl now?”

“She learned.” Gwen balls her other hand into a fist. "Morgana, Uther sent me to the dungeons because I yelled at his son. He would’ve had me whipped next. My father was slaughtered in his war, and I spent the whole summer thinking my brother would die in yours. Living seemed ambition enough for me." She swallows, her throat clicking. "I learned to hold myself back. I had to."

“You never held back with me.”

“No.” Gwen looks away. “Because you—you were my friend. You are you. I know you.”

“And I know you.” Morgana smiles, small but bright, eager as Gwen remembers from the growing seasons of their younger years. “I know what is in you. Let it out, Gwen. We are in a dream, for Brigit’s sake. This is a place where anything can happen. And yet you hold yourself still and small.”

Gwen glances down at her hands—callused fingers and rough palms, her nails short and unvarnished. Controlled. Careful.

Morgana's voice is reverent, a touchable thing. "Let go."

“I have nothing to let go,” Gwen repeats softly. 

Morgana whispers back, “We always do.”

Gwen laughs a little. She always does. Morgana is staring at her with nothing more than hope, and Gwen wants then, more than anything, to kiss her—out of simple passion, and affection, and beyond all those, recognition. She knows Morgana. She knows her pettiness and her ambitions and her anger, the untarnished rage she bears against a world that never let her live, and through it all, her unrelenting desire for one that will. 

She knows herself.

“What do you want, Gwen?” Morgana asks, and Gwen is stricken by her question’s singularity. “What would you do, if you could do anything?”

Gwen rises to her feet and closes her eyes. She takes one deep breath, and then another, letting the cool air flow down her throat and fill her lungs, making them greater. She tracks the path of her every exhalation, the rush of blood in her fingers and her hands, against her pulse where the skin is thin. Her breathing is the only sound she can hear. Elsewhere, it is utterly still.

She opens her eyes and spreads her hands out, and the white is no more.

Color fills the blankness surrounding them, tendrils of green and blue seeping through the air like the richest of ink through water. There grows beneath her feet mossy ground, shaded by singing leaves and smelling of forest loam, and above them, trees grow to their full centuries’ span between one blink and the next, spreading their gnarled branches to build a citadel of leaves. Around them, there is the sound of children laughing. There are ribbons fluttering from the old tree, each one a memorial. 

The trees shift and grow distant. The sky above the forest is painted a thousand shades of blue, and at Gwen’s wave, all the flowers bloom in wild color. The meadows and valleys run and roll around them like the back of a great beast, the wind howling as breath, speeding all around them, tickling their hair—

—and before them looms the citadel, but not the citadel they know. Its banners flutter in the wind, no longer blazoned with the colors of blood and metal but instead flying with a thousand shades, every hue that dye can capture. The castle is gone, along with its walls of white stone, and in its place are courtyards and orchards and houses with windows grand and clear. There are no guards. No pyres. No children killed in the name of a father’s war. The buildings are filled with singing, and the people throng. And the citadel is now small, a fracture of paleness against the forest and the meadow, and the land is still spinning out about them, silver rivers glittering, mountains rising, blooming in stone and snow. There is no gleam of armor, no flash of heraldry. The Valley is growing, a garden again, and the Isles spin themselves out of mist, grand arches open to all, shooting for the sky. Towns rise up, hundreds, uncountable, thriving, each of them no less fine and jeweled than Camelot, and all their fields grow golden. 

And beyond them all—the sea with its wealth of salt, foam flashing white, waters blue beneath the sky, incomparably bright.

Gwen’s breaths are coming hard and fast. She feels like she has just run across all the plains, and she sinks to her knees at the edge of the cliff, panting. Below her, the surf crashes against the stone. The air is thick with salt and life, and she tilts her head back, glorying in the unfettered light. She has always wanted to see the ocean. 

“Gwen—” Morgana breathes from behind her. “Gods above—Gwen—”

She turns her head to look at Morgana, who is bare against the gleaming world. Her face is open and unshadowed, her lips parted in awe at the sky that arcs above them. When their eyes meet, Morgana’s gaze is brighter than the mirror sea, green and wanting like that rarest of seasons. Her hand is outstretched, her fingers reaching. In that moment, Gwen understands the hyperbole of passion with sweeping clarity, more than she ever has. She craves the kisses of their fingertips the way the leaves on the trees crave the brush of spring.

“I would build this,” Gwen whispers in a daze. “I would see us live.”

There are tears spilling down Morgana’s cheeks. Her whole body is straining, and Gwen staggers to her feet and stumbles to stand before her. She holds up her hands so their fingers align like the sun and shadows streaming through the streets in the hour of sunset. The waves roar. Words rise in her throat, but they are too small against the enormity of near-feeling.

They stand there, and around them both, there is the sea.

_No fate chose this for me. No fate chose this blood, this war, these deaths. I do not want anyone to try and absolve me. Destiny is the coward’s way out, and absolution is a worthless good._

_I chose this. I chose you._

Gwen awakens to a dark room.

Her breath is coming fast, like she has run through the forest and back home again. She blinks up at the shadowy stone ceiling with bemusement, wondering why there is no sky above her, no crash of the water in her ears. And then she remembers.

The floor feels strange beneath her feet, solid and gritty. She unwinds herself from her coverlet and rises from her pallet. Her feet slap against the wooden floorboards. The sky above the horizon is pinking when she emerges into the main room. The air is already stifling and still, even though it is not yet day. She stands by the window and catalogues the colors in the sky as they emerge—blush red and orange, yellow like a fire, the no-color gray that is born when the first rays of day touch the greedy night.

In the half-light of dawn, the shrouds around her loom and reach. She can make out the broad sides of a wardrobe. The legs of a table. The swooping back of a chair. Boxes of the little things left behind—hand-bellows and hairpins, cushions and jewelry-chests. She was the one who put everything to rest when Morgana’s household disbanded. She was the one who draped that all that funereal fabric, and now it is closing in on her until she cannot breathe.

She holds out her hands and surveys them in the gloom. Her fingers in life are controlled. Careful. Taught and trained.

When she slams them on the floor, there is a single moment of ringing silence. 

With a mighty groan, the white-draped specters rise into the air, sloughing off their cloaks like shedding snakes in the new year. There is a sharp _snap_. And then another, and another, loud cracks which echo in the room, and all at once the wardrobe and tables and chairs shatter into fragments, showering splinters through the air that clatter on the ground with the patter of rain. The broken wood hangs in the air—couch arms and table legs crumble and spark, wrenched apart by the gold coursing through her. She blazes with it. The air sings, filled to bursting with a chorus of humming chatter, and in an unseen current the shattered wood whirls about her, breaking and breaking and breaking. 

From her hands there comes a seething wind that whips the shards and the shrouds about, arraying them into shapes that live and die and crash into each other in the space of a moment. The wood pieces clack and snap when they collide, breaking even further. And in their midst, she stands—not the eye, but the hands of the storm.

The windows crack.

Slowly, the wind ceases. The panels of white flutter to the ground, no longer so ghostly. One by one, the pieces of broken wood fall. The stars fade from view, the glimmer on the edges of the fragments diminishing until they are a worldly tone again, but the light is still in her hands. When she lifts them up, sparks flicker around her fingers, running back into her blood. She clasps them together to make sure they are fully hers, running the fingers of her left hand over the palm of her right, tracing the knuckles of her right hand with the fingertips of the left. She knows them as she ever has.

She is grinning. She cannot remember the last time she has been so tired, or so happy. There is a clean patch of floor in front of her, and she lies down and takes great gulps of breath, combing the sawdust from her hair with her fingers. There are little bits of a chair next to her head, and she rolls onto her elbows and gingerly picks them up, feathering her fingers over their ragged edges and marvelling. A laugh breaks out of her, clear and free, resounding in the empty room.

In the middle of the floor, broken glass glints half-hidden under a fold of white. She pushes herself up and steps over piles of debris, careful not to brush her bare feet against any of the splintered wood. When she gets to the glass, she picks the flowers out from the fragments. A sprig of lavender, three violets, a single daisy—all their petals crushed, their stems broken. She shakes them thoroughly until all the little pieces of glass have fallen to the ground. The blooms are small and bruised, and she clasps them between her hands and holds them to her chest.

She doesn’t know how her magic works. She doesn’t know how much she has left in her after what she has just done. She only knows that she wants them to grow again.

Gwen lets her eyes flutter shut. She thinks of forests and moss, the glens and meadows where flowers display their colors. There is a pull from beneath her ribs, and the flowers shift beneath her fingers, changing. Her knees give. She sinks to the ground, but she does not let go, not until the air tastes of sweetness and growing things. When she opens her eyes again, the flowers in her hands are transformed into wholeness, the delicacy of their petals once again hale and vibrant even in the gloom. She laughs again in sheer delight. 

Her knees wobble as she levers herself to her feet. Step by step, she makes her way to the window and props herself against it. She—will find a vase for the flowers later. Or she will fix their old one, once she rebuilds her strength. A whole world of possibilities opens before her. It is dizzying. Maybe she’ll fix the furniture. Maybe she won’t. But now—she has other things to do. She sets the flowers on the windowsill and turns back to her own rooms to get dressed.

Dawn breaks. And through the cracked windows, promising of cold days—a wind.

_Do you know the worst thing? The most beautiful thing?_

_I would still choose you. Every time._

“We’re going outside today,” Gwen announces.

Imogen’s hand stills mid-stitch. “We are?”

“Yes.” Gwen frowns, a sudden worry occurring to her. “Unless you’d rather stay here?”

“I’d rather shovel manure at noon on Midsummer than stay here,” Imogen says. “But I don’t think you and I share that opinion.”

Gwen cracks a grin. “Trust me, Imogen?”

Imogen raises an eyebrow, but she starts packing her basket nonetheless. They leave their fabric panels behind in the sunlit room and trample down the stairs, through the small and bustling servants’ corridors. Gwen tugs Imogen to the kitchens, and Hilda nods approvingly and tells them that they deserve a day off after Gwen says that they are going to have a picnic. The cook packs for them a parcel of cheese and hand-pies and bread, and hands them a pitcher of new cider to wash it all down. Before they leave the castle entirely, Gwen hurries down the hallway that leads to Gaius’ chambers. Merlin is sitting at the main table, chopping chamomile stems with a jittery, aimless speed. Kara sits at the hearth as she presses fresh wax onto the seals of Gaius’ old bottles. They look up when Gwen enters the room, with Imogen behind her.

“I don’t suppose you have any plans today?” Gwen asks. Merlin shakes his head, and Gwen holds out her hand, beckoning.

“Let’s go,” she says, and the tightness around his mouth abates a little.

His knife and palette are cleaned and set aside, the carefully sliced greenery set into a bowl for later use. He wipes his hands on his trousers before coming up to her. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Just—” Gwen shrugs. “Out.”

Merlin starts to smile. Behind him, Gwen can see Kara still working, checking the seals on Gaius’ jars and studiously ignoring them. The room is small around her, and the skin at her wrists is red and raw from the cold iron. “Kara—” Gwen hesitates for only a moment before she asks, “Do you want to come?”

Kara’s gaze skitters to Merlin, and then to Imogen, before returning to Gwen. She bobs her head once before turning to tidy all the bottles surrounding her with unsteady fingers. Her footsteps trail behind them as they leave the castle through the servants’ entrance, skirting the edges of the lower town.

It is the windy month that begins the cold season in earnest, when everything in the meadows is dead and dry and all the trees have turned red and bright, one last revolt until they turn bare and empty. They slip between the guards stationed at the gates and head into the forest, the last stronghold of life. Gwen can feel the moment they decide to cast aside their differences in favor of running carelessly through the moss. Imogen laughs as she trips on a branch, swatting aside the leaves around her, and Gwen pulls her to her feet, yelping as she too stumbles over the underbrush. She turns back to the others to see Kara staring around at the trees with something akin to disbelief. Gwen remembers with a start that the girl hasn’t seen true sunlight for months, much less such grandeur of color. Her hands are balled into fists at her sides, straining, wanting. She starts when Gwen guides her over to sit down on a fallen log. 

Gwen herself crouches down in front of Kara, pulling out the one panel of embroidery she had brought along. It is small, the size of her palm, only fit to be a patch for a lady’s dress. She jerks at the needle until the thread breaks, distorting the flowers in their frozen blooming, and throws aside the panel onto the log. It is the needle she needs.

“Gwen,” Merlin starts, “what are you—”

“I know how this feels.” The leaves on the forest floor crackle as he hastens over. Undeterred, Gwen turns Kara’s arm over, to where the bands are fastened onto her body. “When I took the draught for dreamless sleep—it felt like I was already drowning.”

Kara goes ashen white. She stares at Gwen like she has seen the dead walking, and Gwen only nods as she slips her needle into the lock, bending the tip of it down to create a hook. The hooked needle end easily manipulates the tumblers, and soon the silver and iron fall away, leaving Kara’s arm bare. The bands sting against Gwen’s fingers. She cannot fathom having to wear them for months on end.

“You are more than able to protect us,” Gwen mutters, glancing at Merlin. “But I don’t think you’ll have to.”

Merlin nods slowly and steps away. Gwen moves onto the girl’s other arm, unlocking the twin bands there, and then releases the bands around her ankles, flinging the cold iron as far away as she can, into a pile of leaves on the other side of the clearing. She tucks the needle, bend and all, back into the discarded fabric and rolls it up, slipping the bundle into her belt next to her knife.

Kara lifts her hands into the air. She is shaking with violence, each tremor enough to wrack her frame, and there is gold racing through her skin now, healing the wounds from the cold iron, sparking from her fingers, furious. She looks at her own hands in fear and wonder, and then in recognition, and then she lifts her light-flooded eyes to them.

Her scream ripples through the clearing, followed by a wave of air that whips the fallen leaves into a frenzy and knocks them all back two paces. The ground beneath them rumbles. Merlin raises his hand, but Gwen catches him by the wrist before he can stop her. “Wait,” she calls. “Merlin—she isn’t—”

No monsters come. No knives and swords erupt like an ill harvest—but there are flowers growing, the color of wine and pearls. Moss and lichen flare on the trees in brilliant and strange shades of green and blue, and the branches above them drop the last of their yellowing leaves and dimple with buds instead, whole clusters of them. The buds burst, showing a riot of petals, and between them all there is the pale green of new leaves. 

The earth subsides. Kara starts weeping, hiding her face in her flickering hands. “I’m sorry,” she gasps. “I—I didn’t mean—I’m sorry. Don’t burn me. Please. Mother and gods, please—”

“We will not burn you.” Gwen approaches her and crouches in the leaves again, so they can be eye-to-eye. “Look at me, Kara. Look.”

The girl finally raises her head. Gwen is still spent from the morning, but she can try nonetheless. She snaps her fingers, and there is a flurry of sparks, and a breeze. “No one here will burn you,” she swears.

Kara nods slowly, and then she gasps. Gwen turns around in time to see Imogen thrust her hand into the air and speak a word that glitters like a river. Sunlight emanates from her palm, glistening under the forest canopy. Merlin takes a deep breath, and then another, and he cups his hands together and says words that rattle like growing leaves. When he parts his hands, blue butterflies flit into the air, their wings as strong and fine as her mother's knife. Gwen feels a grin break at the sight of them, and Merlin too is smiling, looking up at the sky like he has never seen it before.

With a muffled sob, Kara curls into herself. She starts laughing—or crying—or screaming, Gwen cannot tell, and when Gwen carefully embraces her, she does not flinch away.

Gwen ends up keeping watch for the other three—happily so, since she doesn’t have enough power in her to light a candle at the present, and someone still needs to be cautious. She weaves crowns from Kara’s flowers with the unthinking ease of practice, watching for intruders while the other three run around the clearing and giggle as the grass grows beneath their feet. Imogen and Merlin start duelling, with Kara watching raptly from the side, and they shoot off flames and wind and whoop whenever they land a strike.

Imogen collapses next to Gwen after Merlin knocks her down for the third time, letting Kara take her spot. She is sweaty, curls clinging to her forehead and temples. Her grin is wider than any Gwen has seen from her before. “Got in a couple hits, didn’t I?” she asks cheerfully, still struggling with her breath.

Gwen hands her one of the flower crowns. “Congratulations,” she says, and Imogen nestles the blooms in her hair and preens.

The duel between Merlin and Kara has turned into him showing her how to block things with her magic. He is teaching her the spell now, a handful of syllables that make Gwen’s hands tingle, and the girl shouts in glee when Merlin tosses a handful of leaves at her and, at her clumsily shouted words, they disperse as if in a storm.

“I haven’t done this since I was tiny,” Imogen is saying. “Brigit above, it feels good. I feel—I don’t know. Alive, or something.” She turns to Gwen, wiping the sweat from her hair. “You should try it. Take some shots. He’ll probably go easy on you since you’re his best friend and all.”

“I’m hardly going to agree to an unfair duel,” Gwen says, pretending at haughtiness, and Imogen snorts. “But I can’t. I—did a fair amount of magic this morning. It'll take a couple days for me to recover from that.”

“What did you do? Dust a whole suite? Weave an entire ell of silk in a day?” Imogen’s teasing is fond, but Gwen rolls her eyes nonetheless. “Clean and hang the tapestries in the eastern corridor by yourself?”

“I smashed all of Morgana’s furniture.”

Imogen’s jaw drops. She gapes in silence for a moment before she starts to laugh in astonishment, slinging her arms around Gwen and tugging her close. “Good,” she declares. She suddenly falls quiet before repeating in a voice less jovial but just as earnest, “Good for you, Gwen.”

Gwen leans against her for a moment before resuming her weaving. “I wouldn’t say that, exactly. Now I just have piles on piles of wood and sawdust in the antechamber.”

Imogen brushes her worry away. “I’ll help you fix it. I broke so many tables as a kid whenever I got angry, and my mother made me fix them afterwards. I know all the tricks.” She waves her hand, sending a shower of sparks through the air, and the half-broken branch in front of them becomes whole again. “It’s not as easy as breaking it. But—it’s not too bad either, if you try.”

In the clearing, Kara has already mastered the incantation. She and Merlin are playing a game where they throw a small rock back and forth, using the spell instead of their hands. Merlin is the first one to drop the stone. It lands on his foot, and he jumps and swears, rubbing at his stubbed toe.

“Can we eat now?” he calls in Gwen’s direction. _Save me_ , he mouths afterwards, turning his face just enough so Kara can read his lips, and the girl chortles.

Gwen unwraps the food she had brought from the castle. They each get half a piece of bread, a bit of mince pie, and a bite’s worth of cheese after the food has all been divided evenly, and they split most of the watered cider between them. It is a scanty meal, hardly enough for four sorcerers who have spent the morning running free. Imogen finds a crabapple tree at the edge of the clearing, next to the pile of dead metal. She kicks the bracelets aside as she approaches the branches. They are studded with half-ripe fruits the size of Gwen’s thumb; the tree had bloomed too late, so deep in the forest, and if left to the laws of its world, it will now pass into winter without ever ripening. Imogen lays her hands on the bark of the trunk, and Kara joins her. Merlin crouches down and digs his fingers into the spaces between the roots of the trees. Gwen goes too, curling her hands around two of the trees’ branches.

None of them speak—no spells, no gestures, but still there rises a humming in the forest, and light all about them. The green-yellow fruits ripen and turn red and full, luminous. The air in the clearing is filled with gold, wealth enough for an age. She plucks one of the apples. It is small enough to fit in the hollow of her palm, warm from the force of growing. When she bites into it, the skin breaks crisply under her teeth, giving way to a tart sweetness.

They eat their food and gorge themselves on apples. When it comes time to return to the castle, the sky is darkening, and Gwen is aching and tired, and breathing easier than she has for a long, long time. She gathers their things from around the clearing. “Kara,” she calls, picking up one of the flower crowns, “do you want—”

She breaks off when she sees the stiffness in the girl’s shoulders. Kara is standing next to the apple tree and staring down at the ground, and Gwen’s breath punches out of her when she remembers what else is there. The bracelets.

“Merlin,” she mutters, tilting her head at the girl. “Do you think we can do something about the restraints? If we jam the locks, they’ll still abrade, but their binding powers won’t fully—”

Merlin abruptly walks over to where Kara stands. He picks up the bracelets, flinching when his skin comes into contact with the metal. With a slam of his foot, the ground opens, and he throws the silver and iron down into the earth. The soil swallows them up and shudders.

“You can’t do that,” Kara says thinly. “I—they said anyone who took them off—”

“If anyone is going to be punished, it will be me,” he tells her, and his eyes flash to affirm his oath.

Kara nods slowly, crossing her arms over her chest and tucking her hands against her elbows. Imogen picks the last of the apples from the tree and bundles them up in one of the cloths they had used to carry the food into the forest. She hugs the apples to her chest and says, "I want to see her again. We can do that now, right?"

Gwen doesn't have to ask who, or where. She only nods. Merlin glances at her questioningly, and she jerks her head eastward, where the grove lies. 

The tree in the grove is laden with tokens when they come to it, scraps of satin and silk shimmering in the late light. No amount of color can conceal the bare bones on the ground, but it is enough to give them memorial. There are so many tokens weighing down the branches that they seem to be in bloom again, for the first time Gwen can remember. She recognizes some of them—a strip cut from Hilda's yellow apron, the ribbon Alis uses to tie her hair on festival days, a handkerchief Isabella had saved from her first lover, years and years ago. Braided silken threads and linen ropes with clay charms, and little pieces of parchment folded so they did not reveal their confessions.

"This is the first time I've been in here," Imogen says. The bones and the ribbons stretch before her. "My mother and father—they didn't want me to get caught. Judith put flowers here for us. For her."

"I talked to the bones here when I was little," Kara announces into the lull that follows. "Found a skull I pretended was my mother's."

The grove is silent. Kara stands at the brazier like it is a hearth in the castle, her head half-cocked, arms relaxed and gangly by her sides. Gwen and Merlin look at each other, helpless at the girl's brazen, happy grief, and it is then that Imogen grins. She opens her arms, and Kara rushes for her and throws her arms around Imogen's shoulders, hugging her so tightly that she sways.

They step apart so Imogen can set the apples next to the brazier. They are small and dull against the bronze. "It's been a year." Imogen barks out a laugh that the wind half-answers. "A year, and I can finally mourn her."

She laughs again and then sinks to her knees, burying her face in her hands. Kara sits down next to her and glares up at Gwen and Merlin until they join her on the ground. Gwen fiddles with the crumb-scattered cloths and half-drunken cider, the remnants of their glittering day.

"Here," she says suddenly, pushing the pitcher towards Imogen. "For you."

Imogen lifts her head and takes up the pitcher eagerly, as if wanting something for her hands to hold. "To the Goddess," she calls. She pours some out onto the ground and then takes a swig straight from the pitcher. Her voice is soft and only a little jagged as she adds, "You contrary bastard."

They pass the cider around and each offer a draught to the gods before drinking in their own turn. It takes three pours of drink, to mark birth and death and mourning. The king already performed the rites for the dead, but they are not his to mourn. Gwen thinks of her father's forge when it is her turn to pour a libation, and the roadways she cannot pass without remembering him. She hopes, with a child's vicious, greedy hope, that he can see her now, drinking with the dead and living. Living with such alacrity that her lungs ache. 

They have no braziers, no incense, no fine tokens to offer. But they live. Let that be honor enough.


	12. The Sin of Living

The next day is gray and drizzly, the sort of rain that precedes the cold. Gwen digs out more candles from the back of the cabinet and lights them with her eyes, filling the sewing room with the smell of honey and wax. She and Imogen chatter and sing as they sew. Imogen is mending one of her own overtunics today, a beautiful deep emerald garment meticulously patched where it needs patching. Gwen is still sewing her red dress. With any luck, she'll finish it before the winter hits. She can take it with her if she needs to go.

When the knock comes on the door, Gwen goes to answer it. Merlin is standing there, his hands clenched around nothing. “Gwen,” he asks from the doorway, “can you come with me for the afternoon?”

Gwen squints at the rain outside of the window. “Let me get my cloak.”

They saddle their horses and ride out into the rain, their horses’ hooves splashing in the puddles along the eastbound high road. “Where are we going?” Gwen asks, pulling her hood up over her head so the rain doesn’t fall into her hair.

“I think it’s time,” Merlin says in place of an answer.

They ride into the forests surrounding the citadel, where the air is thick with loam and fresh water, and the rain is falling like a volley of arrows by the time they ride out from the trees and cut through the muddy meadows, veering towards the grander woods by the mountains. Gwen urges her pony on to keep up with Merlin’s mare as they go beneath the trees. The branches overhead are so dense and thick that even in the midst of fall, no rain can touch the ground below the leaves. It is dark between the trees, which are larger than Gwen’s arm span can encompass. Merlin conjures a small light to float before them, and they head deeper into the forest.

The trees thin out to form a clearing. A stone stands there, moss-shrouded, its edges worn down by age indeterminable, and in the stone gleams a sword with a golden hilt. The droplets of rain chime as they strike against the blade, which bears no trace of rust.

Gwen dismounts, tying her pony to a low-hanging branch and stepping into the clearing. “Isn’t that the sword I gave you?”

Merlin nods as he follows her between the trees. “It has a name now,” he tells her.

There is no sun that can pierce the clouds above, but the metal still shines. Gwen wraps her fingers around the hilt, marvelling at how the leather on the grip is still dry. In one stroke, she draws the sword from the stone. The blade flashes as she hoists it into the air, admiring its balance. “Excalibur, isn’t it?” she asks absently. She remembers how Merlin had used it to defeat the army of the undying. It doesn’t seem any the worse for wear, for all that it’s been under the elements in a forest for months.

“Aye. It kills anything. Even the undead.” Merlin stands next to her, looking up at the shine of the sword. “I sunk it into the stone with magic, so no one could ever draw it.” He grins at her a little. “Or at least, that was what I thought.”

“It’s a sword I helped make, Merlin,” Gwen says. Excalibur hums in her hands as she hefts it. “It’ll listen to me.”

She can read the characters on the blade now, bidding her to take it up and cast it away in turn. Neither she nor her father had inscribed those runes, but she knows this sword nonetheless. She would know the blade anywhere. Her father had let her help him with its forging, working the bellows and taking turns with him on the anvil, tempering the metal until it held strong and true. It is the finest sword they ever made together.

“Why did you hide it here?” she asks out loud.

"What I did to it made it—dangerous," Merlin admits. "Too dangerous if it falls into the wrong hands. But I still want him to have it, even if I'm not here to help him."

Gwen turns her head to regard him, lowering Excalibur to the ground. “You’re going to talk to Arthur, aren’t you.” It is not a question.

“I have to. I—can’t, Gwen. I realized—” He wipes the rainwater from his cheeks. “You were right. I can’t keep doing this. Not like I have been. Not anymore.”

Gwen holds out her free arm, and he steps close to her, leaning his head on her shoulder. When they ride back to Camelot, she holds the sword at her side, unsheathed, and it shimmers like a flame in the rain. The guards at the gate, water pinging from their armor, wave the both of them through when Merlin takes off his hood and says the sword is for the king. They are quiet while they dismount and put away their tack. 

“Do you want me to go with you?” Gwen asks. 

“Please,” he whispers. Gwen nods. She unclasps her cloak and wraps the blade in it, handing Merlin the sword hilt-first. He takes it with an unsteady hand. 

They walk side by side through the great halls, with the same quick gait Gwen uses to go about her duties, and no one questions the bundle in Merlin’s hands. When they arrive at the corridor adjacent to Arthur’s quarters, Gwen pulls aside the tapestry covering the servants’ passage into the king’s chambers, but Merlin doesn’t go in. He walks to the main door of Arthur’s chambers instead.

“We require an audience with his majesty,” he announces to the guard stationed there.

“His majesty is busy and does not want to be disturbed.”

Merlin glares at the man. He isn’t calling on his magic, but whatever is on his face is still forceful enough to make the guard step back a pace. “I am the king’s attendant. I have stood at his side for the last five years, and I assure you, I know what I am talking about when I say that we require—an audience— _with his majesty_ —” he grits out, and the guard slowly nods, unbarring the door to let them inside.

Arthur is standing by the fire, still in his court attire. He turns around at the sight of them, and he goes pale. “I thought I said I didn’t want to see the two of you again,” he snaps.

His lit fury is quickly banked beneath the same blankness that is all he has shown them for the last month. Merlin takes one step forward, and then another. Arthur stares at him without a flicker of emotion on his face. 

“You said you would summon us. I thought you would, after you buried them.” Merlin stops when he is within arm’s length of the king. “But you never did.” 

The cloak slips from his shaky fingers, revealing the unsheathed sword, and it is then that Arthur moves. Quicker than Gwen can follow, Arthur has his sword drawn and pressed to Merlin’s throat, held steady by instinct. “And that is why,” he says evenly. Gwen doesn’t have to imagine the hurt and fear running beneath his facade—such blankness can only stem from terror.

“You think we came here to kill you?” Merlin asks in a low voice.

Slowly, surely, he raises his free hand and wraps it around the blade, uncaring of the edge. With a twist of his fingers, he pushes the point into his neck, hard enough to break the skin and draw a bead of blood. Arthur flinches. 

“Do you, Arthur?” Merlin's question is gentle. “Because I have spent the last five years of my life protecting you. I have killed for you. I have walked into death for you. Do you still think I would harm you now?”

“You are a sorcerer who came in with a drawn blade.” Arthur’s voice breaks. "What else would you have me think?"

Merlin only nods in response, a small and unhappy smile twisting his mouth. “This is the blade I enchanted for you,” he tells the king. “It can kill anything it touches. We will all fall in ruin if someone who wishes ill takes hold of it. I hid it in the forest, fearing what it might bring.” 

He lets Excalibur drop to the ground with a ringing _clang._ “And it is yours now.” 

Merlin suddenly brings his other hand up and digs the blade into his neck even harder. Blood begins to trickle in earnest down his throat. “I have done—so, so much for you. You will be the greatest king this land has seen, and I have fought for this destiny. Killed and bartered and bled so you didn’t have to. Served your father, who would've seen me dead for the fact of my life. Betrayed my friends before they betrayed you. Watched as you killed the innocent in the name of righteousness. Kept all of _us_ —” his eyes flare for a moment, “—low so you could live. And I don’t regret saving you. I only wish that I had seen the truth of it sooner—that I cannot keep saving you by damning us. No destiny is worth all this.”

Arthur's blankness is shattering now, revealing a hurt he cannot contain, but Merlin does not relent. He tightens his grip on the blade, refusing to let Arthur draw away. “Everything I have done, I have done for you. I did all those things gladly, but I am done condemning others. I am magic, Arthur.” 

The simple declaration echoes throughout the room, lingering in the air like the most potent of spells. “I was born with it. It is as much a part of me as my bones, as my blood. This is your choice to make, and I will follow your command, as I ever have—but if you decide to keep fighting your father's war, then you will kill me first. You honor our dead, but honoring the dead means nothing if you do not honor the living. So if you won’t let us live—”

Merlin lets go of the blade and lifts his chin high, and he says, “Burn me.” 

His fingers are bleeding where the sword had bitten into them. “I am magic,” he repeats. “Light a pyre. Burn me. Behead me. Drown me. I will obey.”

Arthur's gaze is fixed on the red on Merlin’s throat. “Kill me,” Merlin commands, soft and adamant. “Do it. If that is all you think of magic. If that is all you think of me.”

There is a moment of echoing stillness which stretches on and on, and Gwen's pulse thunders in her ears as she looks at the two of them, and the castle closing in all around—when at last Arthur throws his sword to the side, recoiling at the clatter when it hits the floor. Merlin sinks to the ground, his hands trembling like the reddened leaves in autumn, and Arthur kneels next to him, reaching for his cut fingers. He crumples, hiding his face against Merlin’s neck, and he sounds like he has been silent for years as he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Gwen is shaking all over. Her legs give, and she drops into a low crouch, resting there until her knees feel steady enough to support her again. When they are, she rises, moving as carefully as she is able. Arthur's sword rasps against the floorboards when she picks it up. It is a fine blade, with near-perfect balance, made of high-quality steel burnished to a mirror shine, but not so weighed down with the embellishments of kinghood that it couldn't be used in battle. Gwen pulls out her handkerchief. She wipes the blood from the point, and the spots further down on the blade marked by Merlin's fingers. She was a blacksmith's daughter before she was a maid, and a maid before she dabbled in the happenings of the court. Blood can mar metal, if left for too long. 

Excalibur is spotless when she raises it, ringing in the air with her every movement. Her father once told her that she had uncanny luck with iron. She could sharpen any blade and have the edge last through the seasons, take dead metal and make it live—and the sword feels as a breathing thing in her hands now, as familiar and dear as the flesh of her palms. It was not made for her to wield, not heightened to myth under her watch, but she was still the one who made it.

She sets the two swords on Arthur’s desk and makes her way to leave. “Merlin,” she calls back, pausing before she leaves through the servants' entry. “Don’t forget about your hands.”

He startles at the reminder of her presence. Arthur’s hair is bloodied where his fingers have been combing through it. “Right. My hands.” He seems reluctant to get up. “I’ll just—get some bandages—”

Gwen can only manage a small smile, but she hopes he still sees the fondness in it. With a twirl of her fingers, a flurry of sparks manifests above her hand, spinning in an unfelt wind. Merlin freezes at her display before his head snaps down to look at Arthur, and then his fingers, and a grin breaks across his face.

The last thing she sees before the tapestry falls behind her is Merlin’s fingers glowing, and Arthur watching them mend with awe in his eyes.

She tries not to envy them overmuch. 

Arthur is the one to come to her early the next morning. She has planned a day of sewing, restful in comparison to the rest of her sennight’s work, and she goes to answer the knock on the door of Morgana's chambers expecting Imogen or Merlin or Kara, calling out a cheerful, "Come on in—"

The sight of the king makes the bright greeting wither on her tongue. Arthur, for his part, is staring aghast at something just over her shoulder, and she remembers belatedly the wreckage of all of Morgana's furniture in the main room, strewn about like the bones in the grove and the houses in the Valley. When he turns back to her, he looks at her like he no longer knows who she is.

"I'll fix those soon," she says stiffly. "Your majesty."

His laugh is stilted and unhappy, but he no longer carries himself like he is talking to a stranger. "Walk with me, my lady?" he asks.

She assents. They start walking down the stairs and through the corridors. The footsteps of the two knights standing guard trail behind them at the distance mandated by propriety. They come to the edge of the meadow which surrounds the citadel, and Arthur turns to his guards and bids them stay behind. They protest, and he rolls his eyes in a passing semblance of his usual cocksure dismissal.

"What do you think the maid is going to do to me?" he asks them. He watches them intently as they agree. She and Arthur proceed into the meadow unhindered.

The ground is muddy beneath their boots. What grass is left is dead, burned at the tips from the past summer and withered at the roots from the cold. All the flowers are wilted. But the sun is shining and the sky a pure, unbridled blue, and Gwen tilts her head up to the light and thinks it glorious.

"How many times have you done that exact same thing to my guards, my lady?" Arthur's tone is casual. His question not.

"More than I can count," Gwen admits. "And—to your lords, and your councilors, and all your visiting allies."

"Why?"

"Because your world gives me no other recourse, sire. What else would you have me do?" Gwen flings out her hands, encompassing the dusty fields all around them. "I'm a maid, Arthur. A good one. I do my job well. But my job is only what you bid me.” 

She can spy at doorways and behind tapestries for information for his cause, and stand at his side to serve him wine and show that he is strong. That is the power accorded to her, for what little it can do. And he is a kind king even in the midst of war, who remembers mercy enough to protect his own, but that is still mercy at the hands of others. The barest dregs of power and the tender mercy of a king—it is no pleasant way to live. 

Gwen laughs abruptly. "I trust you, you know. I trust you so much that I stayed behind to await my fate at your hands."

"I hoped you would leave," he says in a rush of confession. "I wanted you two to run away from Camelot, so you would be safe. And so I would never have to see you again. So I—I wouldn't—"

"So you wouldn't have to choose," Gwen finishes for him. How luxurious it must be, to live so accustomed to choice that he wants it taken away. 

At her gentle words, he whips around to face her, a wild hurt in his eyes. She only smiles. "Nothing is fated," she tells him. "There is no such thing as destiny. We can always choose, Arthur. But we also do not live in this world alone. The gods made us and bound us only to ourselves, but each day we live, we bind ourselves to each other."

Gwen and Arthur have played in these meadows since they were old enough to know the difference between land and sky. It was here that they kissed and exchanged vows of devotion when they were older, but still not old. They come to the tree which so often witnessed their promises when they were first courting all those seasons ago, and Gwen draws him down to sit next to her under its branches. "Fate is easy. And so is the notion of freedom," she tells him. "But to choose, to choose truly, in the face of all we have been taught for all our lives—that is not so simple."

He settles on the fallen leaves which dust the ground, and they crackle under his weight. “I still miss him,” is what he eventually says, head bowed and neck bared to the sky.

Gwen dares to move a little closer. “That is not a crime.”

“And I still love him.” Arthur makes a sound. It takes Gwen a moment to recognize it as a sob, caught in the back of his throat before anyone can hear it. “I still want to make him proud, and I still want to honor him—and what does that make me, Gwen? That I still love and honor a man who—”

He peters out into silence before he can finish his condemnation. Gwen picks at one of the leaves caught in her kirtle. It crumbles between her nails, parchment-thin skin of orange and red falling away to reveal a lacework of veins. “He was your father. You love him. You mourned him. None of that is wrong.”

“But he was.”

Gwen lets the skeleton of the leaf fall from her fingers and drift to the ground. “Aye. He was. To all of us—and to you.”

“Back when he was still alive, when Morgause first came,” Arthur starts. He shakes his head. “Before we saw—all this. She showed me a vision of my mother that told me how I was born. It was like my uncle said, Gwen—my father went to the Isles and begged for a son, and sacrificed her. Bartered her life like it was coin. And then he hated magic after that for want of someone to blame. Merlin said Morgause was lying to turn me against my father, but—” he breaks off. “I can’t—I can’t know—”

“No,” Gwen says firmly. “You can’t. None of us can.” Ygraine is dead, and Uther too. All they have of the dead is stories. Everything else has passed away. “But you do know what happened afterwards.”

The pyres. The axes. The drownings. Blood spilled, for decades. Bodies in the forest, and beneath the high road. The dead king’s anger had burned whole generations of sorcerers. It spread hate through all the kingdoms and laid the people low and fearful, reaching for them from beyond the grave. All this bloodshed, all this pain, for one man’s rage—one man’s choice—borne from the seat of his guilt or grief or denial and shaped by all the years he spent conquering his kingdom, and all his world told him was justice. And he had raised his children with those wars and those paradigms of kingship, and they inherited the cruelty of his anger as surely as they inherited the crown and scepter.

“You are more than your birth, Arthur. And more than what Uther saw,” Gwen says aloud. “There are ways to lead your people other than what he taught you.”

They sit in the quiet of the meadow, the dry grass sighing in the rush of the westbound wind. Arthur’s eyes are fixed on the distant horizon. He is the first to break the stillness between them. “I know—since I came of age, I have held it to be true, in a corner of my mind, that magic is no more evil than any other human action." His throat clicks as she swallows. "And still I killed, because it was what I knew to do, and that is mine to bear. And Merlin, I think I knew about Merlin. I might've known for a long time, but I didn’t admit it to anyone, least of all myself. It was too much.” He shakes his head. “But you—I understand why you didn't tell me the truth about your magic, Gwen. You don’t need to explain anything to me.” 

There is no bitterness in his voice, only resignation. “I still have to ask, though—when you advise me, who do you speak as?” 

They do not live in this world in isolation. She is a maid and a seer and a seamstress and a smith, a sister and a lover and a friend. Love has always come easily to her, and the realms will have to bury her deep in the rocky ground before she deems that more a curse than a blessing. “I have chosen to bind myself to many.” Gwen says. “And you are one of them, Arthur Pendragon.”

He doesn’t look at her. “I have caused you pain.”

“And I, you.” She cradles his cheek in her palm, guiding him to meet her gaze. “But I will keep trying. If you will.”

He nods. She sets her hand over his. His fingers are sturdy, callused from his battles and warm in the chill of the day. He does not draw away.

In the grips of stronger passions, in the burn of anger or grief, words come easily, as blood from a wound or a flooding rain. Gwen has seen masons trying to rebuild a dam after a flood before. They toiled for long days, struggling against the current of the river, but all of them agreed that the stone and mortar of the old dam had been too worn by the years to stand for much longer. If not this flood, then the next, or the next—it would have fallen. Building against the river's flow is never an easy task, but once built, their new dam would be strong enough to last through all the floods of a generation. 

Arthur is pushing against that current. She is, too.

“I will lift the ban on magic,” he says. “No more will die in my father’s war.”

Gwen’s heart goes still beneath her ribs, caught between exultation and an insidious trepidation. She had also grown under the shadow of Uther’s justice. “And what of your war?” she hears herself ask.

Arthur does not answer her. The war against Morgana was a war against magic before it was a war for land, and now it can no longer be a war for either. They both know it. There are words for a war without a cause—bloodshed, tyranny, slaughter. 

These are what they must bear as their inheritance.

“—sire, this is madness.”

“You surely don’t intend to—”

“You cannot, your majesty. A king’s power can only go so far; you are overreaching—”

“Am I?” Arthur asks with a dangerous lightness.

The whole of the council freezes. It is the first time the king has spoken since the beginning of the meeting, when Arthur announced that he intended to lift the ban on magic, and all seven of Brigit’s hells had promptly broken loose. She and Merlin stand on opposite sides of the room. The pitchers they hold are both nearly empty. The sheer quantity of speech which has been uttered by the lords is remarkable, as is their volume. Merlin looks pale and shocked from where he stands behind the king, holding himself as small as he can. Gwen cannot tell if it is fear or anticipation that is making him seem a shadow of himself. He might not even know. 

“Let me ask you, my Lord Firmin.” Arthur leans over the table, hands clasped precisely in front of him. “Whose power was it that started the Purges? You would know better than I would. You were there, were you not? In the burning days.”

Firmin falters. “It—was under your lord father’s power, that the evil of magic was expelled from this land.”

“And you supported him, as well.” Arthur’s eyes flick over to another councillor. “Lord Dimmond. How many died in the dark year after Queen Ygraine passed away?”

The lord frowns. “I—do not know, my lord.”

“How many graves did you dig in your estate in the mountains?”

Dimmond coughs. “One, my lord. We—did not think that traitors and evil-doers deserved to be buried with the gods’ rites.”

Arthur nods. "One mass burial. A decision my father supported, no doubt." He turns his regard to another of the councilors. "Lord Edelward. Can you tell me why it was that sorcerers must by law burn in Camelot’s square?"

Edelward is the swiftest to answer. "Because magic took the life of your lady mother, my lord. The Queen Ygraine was taken from us by the treachery of the high priestess Nimueh."

Every child in Camelot knows this to be true, and Arthur says—

"No."

He meets Gwen’s eyes and begins to speak. "Magic was banned in Camelot because of my mother's death, yes. My father's grief cannot be questioned, in that case. But his cruelty—" Arthur slowly surveys each of his councilors in turn. “I do blame his cruelty. In every case. Because one man’s anger should never have led to such death. But it cannot bear the entirety of the blame, either. As his council, you could have stopped him—and none of you did.”

“We were obeying the crown,” Dimmond snaps. He has abandoned all semblance of obeisance.

“Your obedience was to the crown, but your loyalty was to yourself, my lord.” Arthur’s every word is sharp as steel and resolute. “You gladly enforced the law in all the towns and used it to pad your coffers and burn your rivals, to wage your own causeless wars. You seized the wealth of the dead and built your manors with it, and bade your men to dig mass graves so you would not have to remember their names. The Purges would not have happened without you.”

The councilors recoil like they have each been struck. Arthur takes a deep breath, tilting his chin up high and proud. “But still—I agree with you, my lords, even if you yourselves do not. A king’s power can only go so far.” He signals Elyan and Gwaine, who are standing guard at the door of the council chamber. “Let them in.”

The door to the council chambers swings open, and the cold room is suddenly filled with people—some of whom smell of tallow-smoke and lye soap, some of whom glance up at the high arched ceilings with awe and trepidation, and none of whom bow. Hilda, still in her apron and ragged shoes, cleaver hanging at her waist. Gaius, dressed in his most somber robes. Imogen, sewing basket in one hand, the other curled into a fist at her side. Judith, awl and half-finished scabbard cradled in the crook of her arm. Simon, who now works her father’s forge, his hands soot-dusted. Alis the laundress and Vera the chambermaid and Isaac the schoolteacher and Seyah the baker’s daughter, and the cobbler, and a stablehand, and the tanner, and two scullery girls, and more besides. Elyan takes off his knight’s helmet and joins them, a merchant who has seen all the mountains of Albion. Gwaine stands next to him, a knight who chose Camelot as his kingdom. Two shy of a score of Arthur's people, most of whom have never before spoken in these lofty halls.

Arthur looks to her. “Merlin, Guinevere—you too.”

She nods, a slow smile breaking on her face, and slips into line next to Imogen. Merlin goes to stand next to Gaius, who shoots him a questioning glare. With the slow rasp of wood on stone, Arthur pushes his chair back and goes to stand before them. There are no trappings of decorum in the way he bows his head before them all. He takes a deep breath, and then he begins.

“You all have lived under the rule of my father’s law regarding magic in Camelot. I called you here today because I want to reconsider that law. Nothing you say within these chambers regarding magic will be punished. I give you permission—” he cuts himself off, “—no, I ask you, please, to speak with honesty.” He holds up his hand, cutting across the rising murmur. “Aye or nay, to lift the ban on magic.”

Imogen’s fingers slip on her sewing basket. If Gwen hadn’t been listening carefully, she would have never noticed, and mistaken the quiet for utter, unbroken stillness. She had known a little of what was to come, but her pulse is still battering against her eardrums and high in her throat, hard enough to bruise and break. She cannot fathom what Merlin must be feeling—a child of the Goddess’ power who came to Camelot by cruel fortune, and endured his years here as fate. Or Hilda, whose sons could conjure fires with a wave. Or Imogen, who grew up under Uther’s law and learnt to fold the sharp edges of herself into small and fragile shapes to survive.

“Speak, please,” Arthur bids them. He is begging. He so rarely begs.

It was not so long ago that they would have all burned for speaking.

Gaius is the first to step forward. He bows deeply, with a stately grace. “My king,” he starts. Gwen keeps staring at Arthur and his council, steady and unerring. “Your intentions come from a good place. But magic—has also posed some of the greatest dangers to Camelot in my memory. Your father’s edict has protected you in ways you do not even yet realize, and you cannot just overturn it in a mere day, Arthur. You need to proceed with caution and do things in their proper turn.” 

His slow inhale rattles in his chest. He glances at—Merlin—and there is fear there, the sort of terror that can only be born from love. She knows what he is going to say a moment before he says it, but cold still makes her stomach sink when Gaius declares, “Therefore, I say nay, sire. Nay.”

The tanner steps forward, staring nervously at the lords standing behind Arthur. “Nay, sire,” he says loudly.

Vera is the next to come forward. “Nay,” she whispers, her head bowed.

Gwen looks over the physician’s lowered head to meet Merlin’s eyes, and they are blue but burning with all that is in him. They stare at each other as the muttering rises again, unstoppable and twisting every each way, rising to panic, because they are still in the king’s city, under the king’s law, and of course the king would never lift the ban on magic, of course he would never disobey his father’s edicts or surrender in his father’s war, of course Uther’s hate lives on in them just as surely as the castle will press down on their bones—

Merlin steps forward, shoulders squared as if facing a squad of archers. “Aye,” he shouts. His breathing is loud and ragged in the aftermath of his single cry. 

Gwen steps forward. “Aye,” she calls, her head held high, and the sound rings clear and echoes off the rafters.

“Aye, sire.” Hilda steps forward, and she lets her hand fall from the cleaver at her waist. Her voice trembles, but her declaration is not uncertain.

Armor clinks as Elyan steps forward, his cloak falling around him. “Aye, my king.”

Imogen is the next to join them, basket of thread in hand, defiance bright as a blade in her cry of affirmation. Then Judith, with a declaration that resounds despite her wariness. Then Alis, and Gwaine, and the cobbler, and Seyah, and Simon—and they call _aye, aye, aye_ , because they each know someone who has that fire in their eyes, and they have always been here, through the Purges and the funeral pyres; because they have lived, and will live, and one man's hate will never be enough to shatter them; because this is their home, and their only sin is the sin of living—

—and there are so many of them that their shouts begin to overlap, turning into a chorus exulting, a hopeful scream; a crashing river, the tide unstoppable. They are strident and fearless in their number, shaking at the castle walls—loud and clamoring, inexorable. There are words for a people shouting at their king: rebellion, revolution, revolt. Arthur raises his hand again, and they subside for long enough to hear him declare—

"From this day forth, magic is no longer banned in Camelot."

The shout goes up again, loud enough to reach the sky, and Gwen thinks of other words—jubilation. Recompense. Freedom.


	13. Goddess, Listen

The first time magic is used openly in the great hall, it is to stop a goblet from spilling. The lords and ladies go as still as statues, turning to the serving girl whose eyes are glittering, and the air is so tense that Gwen can feel it ringing like the noonday bell. She is the one to go to the high table and steady the goblet with her hands, setting it next to Arthur’s elbow with a studied casual air and a small bow, and she guides the serving girl back down to the kitchens and hugs her next to the hearths, rocking her to and fro as she begins to cry. 

The second time is when two of the scullery girls are racing from one end of the hall to the other, too eager to finish their duties before dinner to care for propriety. One of them trips, spilling her armful of dirty cutlery, and the other giggles, slowing the movement of the plates down with a wave of her fingers, just enough for her friend to pick herself off of the ground and pluck the ceramic out of the air, like cherries from a tree. They run on, unknowing or unheeding of the fearful whispers rising in their wake. 

The third time, a woman freezes the whole great hall and walks through calmly, taking the jewels from around the lords’ and ladies’ throats as easily as she would from an opened treasury with no knights at the door. The guards catch her in the lower town, selling pearls that are easily worth a year’s wages.

“You need to talk to him,” Merlin proclaims as he crashes into her rooms.

Gwen is sitting on the floor of the main chamber, mending together the pieces of a broken chair. The spots where she fuses the wood together are lumpy and misshapen, but some of them still hold strong. Imogen is next to her, the sleeves of her tunic rolled up so she can handle the fragments without the wool snagging. Her mending is perfect—from practice, she told Gwen with a smirk after Gwen tried to set her first chair up on its feet and it promptly toppled over on its skewed legs before breaking apart like a child's puzzle box. 

Imogen surveys Merlin up and down. “Weren’t you just with him at council?” she asks him mildly.

The jacket on his shoulders is the one he normally only wears on festival days, and his tunic must have been Arthur’s once, red as old wine. He pays his clothing no heed as he sweeps aside a pile of sawdust with his foot and plops down next to them. “That’s besides the point.” He sounds a bare step removed from horror as he tells them, “He’s calling me his advisor. He’ll give me a title next.”

Imogen snorts. Gwen presses two halves of a chair seat together and mutters the syllables Imogen had taught her. They are joined when she looks at them again, but crookedly. She groans and snaps them apart with a glare. “He needs someone he trusts to advise him about magic. Who else could he ask?”

“For starters—you, Gwen,” Merlin says, almost indignantly. He pokes at the heap of sawdust to his left, and it spins like a cyclone and reforms into the handle of a mirror, filigree and all. 

“Merlin, I can’t even fix a chair right. And I’ve seen what you can do.” Gwen nudges him with her shoulder. “At least he’s now regarding you as you deserve.”

“No, he isn’t, he’s just given me a whole set of other duties on top of waiting on him hand and foot.” Merlin scrubs his hands through his hair. He contemplates the pile of debris on the floor in front of them for a moment before diving in, matching up the pieces of table legs and chair arms. “You heard about the robbery yesterday, right? The woman just—waltzed into the hall and took the jewelry from all the lords’ necks.”

“It’s about time someone tried it,” Imogen says in a tart voice. 

Gwen and Merlin swivel around to stare at her, and she stares back at them, eyebrows raised. Merlin turns back to the broken pieces of Morgana’s room. All the levity vanishes when he tells them, “The lords—they’re clamoring for the executioner’s axe.”

“No,” Gwen says flatly.

“They want her dead.”

“It’s barely been a fortnight since the ban was even lifted—”

“And it’s already coming back down on us. I know.” Merlin passes his hand over the fragments of a table leg, and it grows whole under his touch. “They say it’s meted punishment for her theft, but Camelot hasn’t killed for stealing since the beginning of Uther’s reign. They’re afraid, Gwen. More afraid than I’ve ever seen them.”

Magic does not follow the rules of bloodline or wealth. Servants have it, and seamstresses, and tanner’s sons, and baker’s daughters. Lords can choose the recipients of swords through the knight’s code, and they can choose the recipients of wealth and soldiers through the careful curation of their allies, but magic is bidden to none of the trappings of nobility and obeys no king’s edicts. And with it, anyone with intent can defeat an army, break swords asunder and burn away all wealth.

And thus the lords razed them all. The Purges never had anything of justice—only greedy fear.

“You do realize what that’ll look like, right?” Imogen sets down her mended section of a tabletop and crosses her arms. “Like the king was baiting us out to prepare for another Purge.”

“Arthur wouldn’t do that,” Merlin says.

“But from what you’re saying, the lords already are.” Imogen flings her hands out. “No one would be surprised; it’s only what we expect. Judith is petrified. My mother still doesn’t let me light the fire at home because she thinks the guards are going to break in and drag me away. The only reason I’m as comfortable as I am is because I’ve somehow become friends with you two—and because I will haunt you both to the ends of the earth, until you enter the Mother’s loving embrace, if you let me die.” Her eyes flash. “So make sure it doesn’t happen.”

Gwen laughs, but she takes Imogen’s oath in absolute earnestness. “The punishment for crimes done by magic should be equal to the punishment of those same crimes done by steel,” she tells Merlin, fiddling with the armrest of a chair. “And the woman committed a robbery. No more, and no less. Without harming anyone.”

“You want me to convince Arthur that the woman who is terrifying his entire court should only get a fortnight in the dungeons?” Merlin asks.

Gwen shrugs. “It’s meted justice.”

He glances at her and then sighs, dusting his hands of the clinging sawdust. “And this is why you should be a councilor instead of me,” he mutters, fitting together the pieces of a drawer together.

Imogen starts snapping the legs of a chair back into place with swipes of her hand. “Personally, I think she deserves a medal.” She sets the bottom of the chair on its feet and joins the back to it. “Maybe even a knighthood.”

She speaks in jest, but Gwen still imagines it—one day, when the knight’s code is changed to fit the fabric of their land. “She certainly has an instinct for strategy,” Gwen says aloud.

Fights break out in the square nearly every day, over the smallest of things—a man tripping over his own laces, bread gone too stale, the price of a scented candle. A chambermaid comes in with bruises, her waist-purse empty, muttering something about bullies and the king’s law as she brushes away light-shot tears. The silence still stretches long and suffocating after each time someone’s eyes flash to pour wine, or clean a table, or keep the midges off their food. Everyone holds their breath and waits—for the swing of the executioner’s axe, for a riot to break out, for Morgana to come sweeping in with her new army—but the blow never comes. 

The harvest keeps coming in, more plentiful by the day despite the dwindling of the season. No one burns. No one bleeds. Gwen goes to the well every day to draw water, the skin at the back of her neck prickling at the tension in the square, and she makes herself remember dams and broken bridges. Flooded fields, and the long fortnights they take to drain. Wounds in the first stages of healing, when they still sting and ache.

At the feast to celebrate the ending of the harvest, Arthur draws Merlin forward before all the court, their hands clasped tight together. He is dressed in velvet finery, just sewn for him a few days past, and he has the expression of a wounded deer caught in a hunter's trap, fearful because he knows what the future will bring. Gwen had sat with Merlin for long hours before the feast, and she listened as he told her more about his vaunted prophecy of magic’s return, of lost loves and bloody dawns, and how he was destined to lead the realms into a new golden age. How he believed in his destiny the way he believed in the seasons, but still never dreamt of its fulfillment. _I can’t lead us, Gwen_ , he said. _I don’t know how. I've never been taught—any of this. I came here to learn magic, but I never learned a thing outside of death_ —

Gwen hugged him tight with all the conviction in her. She told him what she knew of magic and the living: the games she and her brother played when they were young, the apothecary's daughter who laughed as Elyan chased after her, the old castle seamstresses and their gleaming silk. Merlin now searches for her from he stands before them all, and she toasts him, her heart in her throat, as Arthur calls to all the assembled people:

“Look now upon Merlin, called Emrys, court sorcerer of Camelot.”

Their joined hands are lifted into the air. Arthur surveys his court with pride and fear and defiance combined, and Merlin stretches out his other hand. He takes a deep breath into his lungs, his eyes spilling forth—

—and then there is light. 

Sunshine, filtering in from the rafters and dancing in the air, illuminating the high hall in a glow against the evening that surrounds them. Dancing sparks which eclipse the smoking torches and dispel their fumes entirely. A breeze flickers over the tables, teasing at the fine braids of the ladies’ hair and the hems of lords’ cloaks. The empty silver vases on the tables burst with tawny and scarlet blooms, never seen before in life, wreathed in greenery that has all but died in the world. The food replenishes itself like the fields of the golden age.

The courtiers clap delightedly at the sight, like they would at any colorful display of ribbons and flowers. It is so bright that Gwen almost cannot bear it, but she keeps watching, for Merlin’s sake. He sits down at a chair by Arthur’s side, pallid and shaky, sweat beaded on his forehead, pulse leaping in his throat. The feast resumes its chatter around her, and she woodenly raises her cup to her mouth, tasting nothing of the wine she drinks. She wonders why people chase triumph, if this is what it feels like. When Gwen comes to the king’s chambers that night, a strength draught cradled between her hands, Merlin is lying in bed and Arthur is holding him, one hand at his waist, the other pressed worriedly to his forehead.

“Magic depletion,” she tells Arthur, setting the vial down on their bedside table. “Gaius said he should recover quickly, but—he did make all that from the air.” 

The physician had seemed angry at her when she asked for the potion. _This is why he should have never learned those spells,_ he snapped. _Fool boy. They can drain you if you're not careful; there was a good reason I never taught him about them._

 _What did you teach him then?_ Gwen had wanted to ask. But she wasn't sure that she wanted to hear the answer, so she stayed silent.

“It’s my fault.” Arthur is as fraught as Merlin was at the feast. “I told him to go too far—”

“No.” Merlin cracks his eyes open, a sliver of blue. “I wanted to.” He reaches for the vial, and Gwen pushes it into his fingers. His nose scrunches up when he drinks from it. “Brigit’s teeth—no magic will keep these from being vile.”

Gwen laughs a little too loudly. Arthur joins her after a moment of looking fearful. There will come a day when they can forget, if only for a moment, that there used to be a time when that sort of jocularity was branded as treason.

“Thank you, Merlin,” Gwen says, after their laughter has died down. She pulls a chair over from the corner and sits down next to the bed, talking with Arthur about the gossip from the evening's feast until color seeps back into Merlin's cheeks and light into his eyes. He falls asleep as the fire burns low. 

Gwen lays her head on Morgana’s lap that night, or tries to, her body moving on a potent mix of instinct and desire, with a vague, unthinking hope that maybe just this time, their world would let her be. The impact of the white ground jars her, and she sighs, rolling to the side and peering up at Morgana. Morgana combs her fingers through the tendrils escaping from her braids, a small smile curving her mouth.

“I hear you no longer live under the butcher’s law,” she says.

“You should dismiss your spies for complacency.” Gwen idly drags her finger over Morgana’s knuckles. “The ban was lifted near a month ago.”

“Not dying is one thing, but living is another.” Morgana takes a deep breath, and she cannot conceal the unsteadiness in her voice when she says, “A sorcerer standing at the head of Camelot’s court. It seems a dream.”

Gwen lets her hand fall back to her side. “It was your dream first.”

“And now the one who poisoned me leads that dream, while I fight against it.” Morgana’s laugh is bitter but soft. “How strange the vagaries of fortune are.” She cradles Gwen’s face, and Gwen presses her own hand to her cheek, leaning into the warmth of it.

They talk of little things, enough to sketch a world around them. Ismere had also thrown their autumn festival recently, and Morgana recounts the dances she had seen by the bonfire, the baked apples and spiced chestnuts that had laden her table. Gwen in turn tells her of Camelot’s autumn feasts and the cherries of the scullery girls’ plates, the turning of the leaves, the smell of beeswax candles in the night.

“It sounds—as I remember,” Morgana says at last.

“It’s changed so much.” Gwen sits up and moves as close as she can. “But we are still here. And fall will always come.”

“Aye. Then the winter.” Morgana draws her knees up and rests her head on them. “Then the spring. Time comes for us all.”

Gwen watches as Morgana curls in on herself, her head bowed and shoulders slumped under the frazzled veil of her hair. She looks solemn, and small. She never looks small. Her tales of nothingness had been stilted, and she never shows anything of stiltedness. “Has something happened?” she asks, hand hovering over her back.

Without lifting her face, Morgana shakes her head. “It’s been happening. It is. I’ve known it would, but—”

“Morgause,” Gwen realizes. “Gods, Morgana. I’m so sorry.”

“Not yet, so save your condolences. But—it’s a matter of days. I’ve tried, and tried, but I’ve never been a good healer, and _nothing worked_ —” When Morgana looks up at Gwen, her eyes are spilling over. “She’s all I have left, Gwen.”

The space beneath Gwen’s ribs feels hollow at Morgana’s desperation. There was a time, back when they could simply touch, when she would have said, _You still have me_ , and meant every syllable to the core of her. “What about the healing draughts you took?”

“Nothing worked. Nothing. At the beginning—she said she would hang on until she saw me crowned. But I’m not going to be crowned.” Morgana’s words are drawn from her like ragged thread on the verge of snapping. “I won’t bow to Camelot. I won’t. But the war is done; we all know that. And then she said she would hang on until the next spring, so she could see the world come alive—but she couldn’t even rise from her bed when autumn came. And then—she said she would make it until the solstice, so we could perform the Mother’s rites one last time. But now—” Morgana makes a high, pained noise, and Gwen hovers her hands over her shoulders, her arms, searching for some way to comfort her. She can’t even wipe her tears away. She can only watch as Morgana croaks, “Every time she breathes, she sounds like she is drowning.”

Morgana digs at her eyes with the heels of her hands, until her tears stop running. “When the time comes, I’ll bury her in the Isles,” she whispers. “With the other priestesses. She will be remembered when they find her.”

Generations came before them, and generations will come after, until the final days arrive and the earth and sky open. Someone will remember them in the days to come, and they cannot choose how. Gwen sits with Morgana as she mourns the future, separated by a handspan and all the span between their kingdoms. The white world fades, little by little, like the stars before the dawn, and Gwen’s eyes are lulled to close by the blurring of her vision. When she opens them again, she is surrounded by wood and stone.

She pushes herself upright, wincing as her spine cracks. In the corridor outside her door, the sunlight is already shining.

“That’s mad,” Arthur declares. "You can't be serious."

"I most certainly am."

Merlin’s expression is flint-sharp and brittle. “You want me to heal her? After what she’s done to us?”

Gwen braces her hands on the desk. “What else do you suggest we do about it?”

“What else?” Arthur throws his hands out. “We let her die, Gwen. As she should. She’s been manipulating us since I turned of age, probably even before then. She took Morgana away and turned her against us. She marched on Camelot with an army of the undead and would’ve gladly had us all in front of the firing squad—”

"And Camelot cast Morgause away. Camelot burned her home down when she was a child, along with every woman who raised her. Camelot turned her into a fugitive before she even lived for ten summers. None of which make her actions right, but none of which absolve us, either." Gwen's fingers are tensed, the tendons on the back of her hands raised. "And I speak of us in our entirety. Because we now bear Camelot's standard and all her victories—and it falls to us to make amends."

Merlin is silent, glaring at her with narrowed eyes. Arthur’s mouth is set in a thin line. Gwen lifts her chin high. "You are letting magic-users live again. That is a good beginning. Now what remains is—"

"Recompense," Arthur finishes her sentence. "You've told me this before. But recompense needn't start with the woman who tried to destroy us."

"Think of it in terms of strategy, if you must." 

"The war is over—"

"With no armistice? No formal treaty? You know better than that." Gwen jerks Arthur's forgotten map out from where it had been buried beneath a pile of seasonal tax records. "You need to form an alliance with the standard-bearers of magic before they rip Camelot apart. Neither of you have even declared a ceasefire; we're living on borrowed time. Morgana controls most of the border towns by now." She digs out the pile of tokens from a dusty corner of the desk and starts setting them on the map again. Ismere. Wenwood. Astolat. Sigelai. Kesteven. "You have lifted the ban on magic. Some might stay. But others will still leave for Morgana's land. She will build her kingdom around yours and then start eating into Camelot. It won't be a bloody war; it'll be a slow one. Fought along trade routes and sentry posts. And I do not know who will be the victor."

With a sudden flick of her hand, she wipes all the tokens off of the map, crumpling the parchment up fiercely and tossing it into the burning hearth. "But damn strategy." The map catches fire in a blaze. "Does mercy only apply to the good? Who among us chooses who gets to be good, Arthur?"

He opens his mouth but then pauses, searching for an answer. The fire behind him crackles, parchment turning to ash. "I thought—I thought you would hate her," he manages. "I thought you, of all people—"

"I do," Gwen snaps. "Make no mistake about that."

Morgause had stolen into Camelot when they were all young and happy and planted the seeds of the bloody years they must now witness. Morgause had stolen Morgana away and plunged their kingdom into chaos. Morgause is the cause of all her grief, because she twisted Morgana's mind to cruelty and incited her to drive Uther mad and cut her way through scores of knights to take over the throne and destroy the people who stood in her way—

—but that is also a story. One far too easy to tell. And Gwen has long since stopped telling herself its verses.

"But it doesn't matter how much I might hate her," she says aloud. “If we want for the war to end, we need to find a way to move forward. We cannot subsist on steel and hate, Arthur. Least of all when we are the ones who owe atonement.”

Merlin is the one to break the quiet that settles after she speaks. “None of that is the point, Gwen. She was resurrected after a ritual sacrifice, drained of magic, with fatal wounds. She isn’t meant to live.” He stresses each of his words with care. “I can’t heal her.”

“But you can still try.”

“I can’t—”

“You can,” Gwen says intently. “You can still try, Merlin. You’re the most powerful sorcerer to walk the Mother’s earth. There has to be a draught, or a spell—or something, anything.” She reaches for him across the table, holding out her hand outstretched. “I’ll go with you. All you have to do is try.” She meets his eyes. “Please.”

His throat clicks as he swallows. “Atonement, you said?” he asks in a small voice.

Gwen bows her head. “Aye.”

He sets his hand in hers and nods, and she lets out the breath she has been holding. “She doesn't have much time left,” she tells him. “We need to leave now.”

“I’ll go prepare,” he murmurs.

He kisses Arthur on the forehead and leaves. Gwen slowly sits down in the chair across from the king’s. The fire is smoky, green wood popping in the flame, the snaps as loud as footsteps. 

“Come back to me,” Arthur says. He smiles tremulously. “Both of you.”

Gwen smiles back as much as she is able. “We’ll try.”

She meets Merlin down at the stables, and they saddle their horses and ride down the high road and into the forest. The late autumn air is clear and brisk, the winds rattling the leafless branches above them as they urge their horses on, hooves kicking up leaves as they weave between the trunks. They break out of the forest and gallop down towards the rolling plains leading to the river, which glimmers like silver in the day. They make for the low river plain, spurring on their horses with only a moment’s pause. It comes ever closer—the cragged stones and the withered trees, the broken houses like broken corpses, the muddy stills, the whole Valley a grave. They dismount and tie their horses to the willow at the mouth of the Valley. Merlin has his knapsack with him; glass clinks as he dismounts, and he checks it gingerly once on the ground. Gwen scratches her pony’s snout, looking up at the heavens. It seems somehow more foreboding by day. The trees are too thinned to cast any shade onto the ground, but it is still dark. Even the light is reluctant to bear witness.

Gwen steps into the Valley, and the ground crackles beneath her. She and Merlin pick their way between the empty buildings, the wind and river sighing in time with their every step. He stops her with a hand on her arm. “Can you hear it?” he asks, the barest sparks flickering in the air around him.

She isn’t sure what he is talking about—the wind or the water or the groaning earth—but she knows nevertheless. “They’re mourning.”

He nods, blinking around at the fallen leaves. They carry on. 

The house in the center of the Valley is no longer lit. Its windows are shuttered like closed eyes. The steps creak as they walk up to the door. Merlin moves to enter, and Gwen stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “Let me.”

She steps around him and opens the door, the hinges creaking as she pushes inside. There is a single lit lamp on the table inside, struggling to break through the shadows lurking in every corner. The cabinets are filled with nearly-empty potion vials, some left uncorked. There are bundles of fresh witch hazel and calendula covering the rest of the table. A half-eaten loaf of coarse bread in front of one of the chairs, and a rind of cheese. A diary opened to its ending, crabbed and desperate writing covering the pages from edge to edge, and Gwen makes her way closer and peers down at the letters— _Ygraine. Ygraine. Ygraine. I love you. I have damned us all for you._

“Gwen,” Morgana breathes.

She is standing in the doorway leading to another room. Her eyes are bloodshot, the skin beneath them puffy. She is looking at Gwen like she cannot tell if she is real or a dream, and Gwen isn’t sure, either, even though she knows that this is the waking world. Her dreams never have such certain edges. She takes one faltering step towards her, and another. “We’re here to help,” she says, once she can speak again.

Morgana swivels to the door where Merlin still stands. She snarls, and the fire is already pooling in her hand when Gwen screams, “No, Morgana, don’t—”

She scrambles to stand between the two of them, arms outspread and reaching for them both. “He’s here to help. We both are.” She pronounces her every word with trepid care, staring Morgana down. 

“I don’t care if the Mother herself blessed him,” Morgana snaps. “Why in the hells did you bring him here, Gwen?”

“Because I can heal Morgause.”

Merlin’s words make Morgana freeze mid-gesture. Mist coalesces between her fingers into her sword, and she veers around Gwen and stalks towards Merlin, pointing it at him with an unwavering hand. “You poisoned me.” Merlin flinches, and Morgana doesn’t stop. “You lied to me for years. You left me to die, and now you expect me to believe that you want to heal her?”

Gwen pushes herself between them. The point of the sword grazes against her throat, and Morgana recoils.

“Morgause is already dying. You have nothing to lose in trusting us.” Gwen holds her hands out in appeasement when Morgana’s expression hardens. “And we only want to help you.”

Morgana stares at the small gash now bleeding on her neck. Gwen stares back at her. “Please,” she says plainly. “Let us help.”

Gwen doesn’t move. Her open cut stings in the air. She feels a hand on her shoulder, steering her back—and then Merlin is stepping between her and Morgana's sword, shielding Gwen behind him. Morgana watches the two of them for long moments, her face still set in that careful, furious blankness, before she sets her sword to the side. The blade turns back into mist. 

“You can stand down, Gwen.” Morgana's words are clipped. “I won’t hurt him.”

Gwen steps to the side, hands clenched behind her back in want of something for them to do, and watches as Morgana leans towards Merlin, her barely-banked rage seething in her every breath. “Why?” she bites out. “You’ve never wanted to help us before now. Why do you suddenly see the need to start?”

Merlin’s voice is hoarse and earnest. “Because I should.”

Morgana goes still. The smile that slowly pulls at her lips is the opposite of happy. “The mighty Emrys, discovering a conscience. Is it because you feel guilty?”

“I always have. And I'm sorry.” His breath hitches. “I—gods above, Morgana, I’m so sorry—”

The lantern on the table flares, shattering the glass panes which try to contain it. “I won't forgive you,” Morgana rasps. 

“And you shouldn’t have to.”

He lifts his chin and meets her gaze squarely. Morgana studies him, then Gwen, and little by little, the flame in the lantern subsides and flows back into the metal. She nods and turns away, hurrying back into the other room without saying anything more. Gwen steadies Merlin's shoulders as he slumps. He wordlessly gestures for her to go ahead. 

The second room in the house faces south and east, and what sunlight can bear to touch the Valley streams in through the polished window panes. There are two pallets in the room: one unmade, with a black cloak thrown at its foot, the other occupied. Morgana is kneeling beside it, hand pressed to Morgause’s forehead. The woman on the pallet looks smaller than the Morgause Gwen remembers from the angry stories she told herself—pallid, thin, her lips and fingers blue. Her pale hair is matted, frayed like wheat chaff, and the smell of lavender cannot disperse the stench of sickness in the air.

“It’s sepsis in the blood,” Morgana tells them, a sob hitching in the back of her throat. “The wounds were made by a spelled blade, so they never healed properly. I held it off for as long as I could, but she’s been feverish for months. Her heart’s as fast as a bird’s. She’s—she’s been sleeping for a day now—”

Merlin feels Morgause’s forehead, and then her hand. “She shouldn’t have lived past a sennight,” he says. It is as gentle as he can make it.

Morgana lets out a scream, pressing her forehead to Morgause’s hand. Gwen sinks down next to her and wraps her arms around her, pulling her close, and Morgana’s hands come up and hug her back. She is warm, all elbows and knees, her breath ragged and hot against Gwen's ear, and she smells of old sweat and soap and salt, and Gwen hugs her all the more for it. Morgana falls against Gwen and buries her face in her neck, and Gwen drags her fingers along her back, through the strands of hair fallen from her pins, down the divots of her spine. She can feel her every motion and sound beneath her palms, with each rise and fall of her lungs, each minute shift of her, and she pulls at her until they are pressed tight enough that each one of her unsteady breaths wracks through her as well, echoing through the cage of her chest.

She tucks her head against her shoulder and holds her, and holds her, and holds her.

“You said you could heal her.” Morgana’s words buzz against her skin. Gwen cradles the back of her head, leaning their temples together. “Do it.”

Glass clatters against glass as Merlin sets his knapsack to the ground. “Nothing I brought along will work,” he mutters. "No matter how much power I funnel into it. Not at this stage." He pauses. "But—there is one thing left."

Morgana lifts her head from Gwen’s shoulder and glares at him. Gwen inhales sharply. "You're going to do it."

"I think—" he breaks off, eyes skittering from the two of them to Morgause's unconscious form. "I think we have to."

"Do what?" Morgana clambers to her feet. "What are you going to do to her?"

"He's going to break the Veil, Morgana."

Gwen slowly pushes herself to her feet as Morgana swivels around to stare at her. She has exchanged much of her fury for surprise by the time she turns back to Merlin and demands, "Is that true?"

"Aye." He kneels down and digs a beeswax candle from his knapsack. "When Gwen was—sick—by a fatal poison, there wasn't anything on this earth that could save her. Nothing worked, and I tried—everything. So I called out to the Mother." His fingers pause in setting up the candle on the floor. "I rent apart the worlds. It wasn't prayer. It wasn't a spell. I don't know what in any of the hells it was, other than me screaming at the Mother for her to give Gwen back, and then—it happened."

There is a shocked quiet from Morgana. "How powerful are you, Merlin?" she asks at last in a strained whisper.

"I don't know." He lights the candle and follows it by pulling out a flask. The smell of old fruit wine fills the room when he uncorks it. "But that's all magic is, at the end of the day—a thinning of the worlds. I think it's more a question of how desperate we are."

He pours three libations onto the floor of the house. The wine splatters and seeps like the last drops of lifeblood fallen from a wound. The empty flask is tossed aside with a clatter. That's all it takes to call on the Goddess, if nothing else is to be found—noble houses might host festivals and smelt silver in her name, but she will answer the call of anyone with three pours of drink and a desirous heart. Merlin leans down and picks up one of Morgause's hands, hissing when he touches the blue cold of her fingers. He holds out his other hand to the two of them, and Gwen steps forward and takes it without hesitation. She holds out her hand to Morgana in turn, and Morgana slowly laces their fingers together until they are palm to palm. Her hands are sweat-filmed, small tremors running beneath her skin.

Morgana nods at her, squeezing their joined hands tightly. She takes up Morgause's other hand, the final link in their circle. "What now?" she asks.

A deeper resonance slips behind Merlin’s voice, like the echo of a storm. "Now, we tell her what we want."

Morgause is unmoving on the pallet, gray and bloodless. Gwen looks at her until she can look no more, and she lets her eyes fall shut. The sounds of the room are loud in her ears—the shifting of their tunics against their breeches, the slide and rustle of their hands, their fearful breathing. Merlin starts the invocation to Brigit. His prayer is steady and practiced, and Morgana joins him, speaking in harmony. _Goddess who bears many names, who taught us the arts of sickle and steel, who gave us soft healing and keen mourning, drink with us and hear our song—_

Gwen doesn’t know how many of those invocations the Goddess heard, or how many of them came true—or even if the Mother is out there, or if the Goddess is only the name they give to the glory and terror of living in an uncertain world, the grand story they spin in defiance of their smallness. It doesn't matter. Gwen still knows the prayer by heart. She recited it as she watched her father's body be taken away by the old king's guards, not believing that it would bring him to salvation, but needing to say the words nonetheless. She recites it when she mourns him. She recites it now.

Goddess, listen. Goddess, come. Come to them in all their flaws. Grant them aid.

The darkness in her mind turns brilliant, gold blooming across her vision. It brightens until it turns to white, the white of nothingness and dreams, and Gwen thinks she feels her eyes open, but there is no change to the radiance. She cannot see anything save the light. She can feel it on her skin, in her veins, coursing through her marrow, racing through them all, breaking every particle of their bones apart and making them anew between one breath and the next. Her breath is gold. Her fingernails. Her fingers and palms. The space between her bone and its marrow, and beneath her ribs.

She has to ask. She came to ask. She will. It has come to this because they have lived with their wounds for so long that they do not know what it means to heal—but they still want, want to heal and want to live, want the spring to come again. She throws open all the bounds of herself, forgets that she has skin and bones, and screams at the world in the name of healing—

—and something answers.

There is a voice. The voice does not tell them, this is the price you pay, and the voice does not tell them, this is your recompense, and the voice does not tell them, this is how you will be forgiven, and all that is asked is one question, momentous, simple, profound—

_Is this what you choose?_

—and all they need to do is answer, and so they do, their chorus of shouts blending into one harmony with a raging cry—

 _Aye_.

The flash shatters through her. Gwen’s vision fades back to a dimness she can understand, and little by little she remembers that her eyes are closed, and that she has eyes, and that she has a body that is now sprawled on the ground, head and back twinging from their impact against the wooden planks of the floor—there is a floor, and a house, and a here. She pries her eyes open and slowly levers herself into a sitting position. Next to her, Merlin is sitting up, shaking his head, and Morgana is already upright, rubbing at her temples.

Someone groans, and Morgana gasps. “Morgause.” She rushes over to her bedside, falling next to her. “You’re alive. It worked, you’re—”

Morgause pushes herself up from the sheets like she has all but forgotten the simple motion. She lifts her hands up and sees that they are no longer icy and blue. Her chest heaves as she gulps in one breath, and then another, pressing her hands over her neck and sternum with abject incomprehension. “You’re alive,” Morgana says again, watching her every motion in happy disbelief. “Morgause—you’re healed—”

Morgause slowly surveys the room, the pallets and rumpled blankets, and Morgana, whose tears are starting to trace down her cheeks. A snarl pulls at her cracking lips when she notices Gwen and Merlin still sitting on the floor, and she lifts her hand. Morgana is the one to stop her, wrapping her fingers around her wrist and easing her hand back down. 

“They were the ones who healed you,” she tells her.

It is confoundment that crosses Morgause’s face first, and then a seething anger. She asks, “You went begging to the butcher’s men to save me?”

Morgana does not recoil, but her joy slowly slips away. “They said they would save you. I agreed.”

Morgause's words grow ever louder, rising in a tide of desperation. “And now I will never be free of their debt. Nor you. You should have let me die,” she spits. “Better dying than living in their shadow. Better than living in debt. Now we will never be free of it. What of our war, Morgana? What of our—”

“The war is over,” Morgana whispers, and Morgause stills.

“Is it worth it?” she asks at last. “Our freedom, for my life?”

Morgana bows her head and does not answer.

Morgause’s face twists, and then goes blank. “Leave me. All of you.” She focuses on Morgana. “Even you.”

Morgana does flinch then. Gwen gets to her feet and takes a small step forward to go to her, but Morgana’s expression—and Morgause’s glare—makes her stop. Merlin slips from the room, and she goes with him. Merlin pulls out one of the chairs at the table and sinks down, cradling his head in his hands and massaging his temples with the heels of his hands. His eyes are still flickering whenever he blinks, sparks from a fire bursting when the embers are stirred. He leans against her when she comes to stand next to him. She rests her hand on his shoulder and looks down at the diary pages on the table, imagining the grief on the page raging through the past to reach her in the present. _Do you know the worst thing? The most beautiful thing? I would still choose you. Every time._

Morgana comes out to join them. She sits down across from Merlin. Her hands, when she clasps them on the table, are trembling only slightly. 

“Thank you,” she tells them. 

Merlin nods jerkily in acknowledgment. Gwen holds out her hand, and Morgana brushes their fingers together—an awkward jostle, but it sends a jolt through her body and stills her breath nonetheless, like the spark at the moment of creation.

They too have made a choice.

“Ancasta’s Pass,” Morgana says. She takes a deep breath. “In three days’ time. I will be there.”

They stand on the dun field, dead grass rising and falling like the ocean waves all about them. Gwen draws the pins out from her careful braids and binds her hair into a simple knot to keep it from unravelling. The gale is strong enough to bite at her ears and throw the folds of her kirtle into disarray, but she tilts her head back nevertheless, savoring the coolness. She remembers the swelter of the summer. Arthur stands next to her. He is in his armor and full cloak and tunic, striking in the colors of his house. Excalibur glints at his waist and his crown on his brow. His gaze is trained on the horizon, steadfast. Merlin flanks him on his other side, long coat buttoned to his throat and the wind whips his hair about his head.

Behind them, four knights are arrayed, cloaks billowing in the air. Only the core of Arthur’s forces have accompanied him today. Leon has stood with him since boyhood. The other three—Elyan, Gwaine, and Percival—had come with him to the Isles to stop Morgana the first time she tore open the Veil. They had witnessed the beginning of this war. They will be witnesses to its ending. Not happily, for some of them; Leon had debated with Arthur for near a whole bell after the opened council, invoking all the losses that Camelot had suffered in the conflict against the priestesses—armor, wheat, cattle, and many men. _We cannot let their deaths be in vain, sire,_ he said, and Arthur had listened, face creasing more and more in somber pain. The head knight advocated for any other means of ending the war: offering Morgana control of a city at the border, invoking the rite of single combat, or even maintaining their unspoken truce indefinitely. 

Gwaine had also spoken, candidly as is his wont, and his announcement that Arthur was doing the right thing by denouncing a war built on his father’s _horseshit ideas_ was met by uneasy mutters. Councilors addressed the assembly, demanding that Arthur reconsider. Merlin addressed them too, and reminded them of the beheadings and the drownings, and how far they stand from their vaunted righteousness. It came down to a vote that split the number of the council and knights combined straight down the middle, and the king beheld them all, with a deep heaviness in his eyes, and said—

_I think we were wrong. Gods. We were so wrong._

He cast his vote. Leon came to him afterwards and told him, _you needn’t bear all the blame for the past_ , and Arthur replied, _but I cannot shy from the consequences._ The king and his knights rode out the next morning, Gwen and Merlin in their midst. No one pretended that they were there as attendants for the lordly group. When Arthur goes to Morgana, it is Gwen and Merlin who will go with him. They arrived at Ancasta’s Pass as the sun neared high noon, tying their horses where they could graze. There will be no mounted melee today.

The wind picks up. Leon clears his throat and calls, “They’re coming, sire.”

And so they come over the horizon, travelling on foot—Morgana at the head of a cohort of five sorcerers, each in her dark heraldry. She is flanked by a man in Southron armor on one side and on the other by Morgause, whose flaxen hair is pulled tight to her head. They stop a score of paces away, and the wind is so loud that Gwen can barely hear anything over it.

Morgause is still haggard, but she holds herself tall and proud, not deigning to acknowledge any of them. Morgana is dressed as the king from Gwen’s dream, her armor polished and her tunic fine, the crown of her hair woven with silver to match her crow emblem. She says something to her cohort that is lost to the wind, and they stay behind as she steps forward, trailed by her two commanders. Arthur glances first at Merlin, then Gwen, and nods. He sets off, and they follow.

They stop three scant paces parted from each other. Arthur’s voice cuts through the wind and rings through the land. “Camelot surrenders.”

The wind falls. The vale is still.

His hand goes to the sword at his waist. Handspan by handspan, he draws Excalibur from its scabbard, metal rasping against metal. The blade is bright as flame, flashing in the light of the day. He raises it up, pointing it to the sky, and then lowers it in the same movement, bringing the flat of the blade to rest on the palm of his shield hand. His fingers uncurl from the hilt, turning it from a weapon to an offering. He kneels on the withered grass.

"For all your unnamed dead," he says, "and all the innocent who burned. We surrender, my lady." He offers her the blade, bowing his head. The back of his neck is bared. “Morgana,” he whispers, and the pass is quiet enough for them all to hear it.

She regards him in silence. The wind starts to pick up again. Her fingers curl around the hilt, and she takes up the sword and hoists it into the air towards the cloudless sky. The glittering blade sings in the sun, the air whistling around it in a frenzied song. Gwen watches the gleam of its edge, rooted in place, helpless to do anything save watch and bear witness. He surrendered. Morgana can do as she will. And if she brings it down upon his neck—there are those who would call it justice. 

Her voice makes the wind subside once more. "We accept."

Excalibur is lowered to point at the earth. A stirring runs through Morgana's cohort, and Gwen hears the murmuring of the knights behind her, rising as cicada chatter before falling again into stillness. Morgana looks down at Arthur. He keeps his head lowered for all that time.

"Rise," she bids him, and he lifts his face to hers. "Arthur," she adds. She offers him her hand, and he takes it. 

She helps him to his feet, and Gwen thinks for a moment that it is spring again.


	14. The Turning of the Year

The leaves have all fallen. It rains near constantly, and daylight becomes more precious as the nights grow longer. Every few days, Gwen walks through all the rooms in the castle and makes sure that the candles are properly lit, switching out the ones which have burned down to their final marks. They are beeswax in the main castle and scented tallow in the servants' wing and working quarters, and Gwen makes a note to go down to the lower town and get some wax candles for them all to use. Switching out just a few helps with the smell. She scrapes out the melted wax and tallow, cooled into strange shapes, from the bases of the candelabra and sends it back to the candler, to be melted and made anew. The glow of firelight is one of her favorite parts of winter; the skies outside are stormy, but the castle is warm, a beacon in the roiling dark.

Arthur spends hours with his council and knights nigh-on every day now, planning for Morgana’s arrival and the upheaval of their world. None of them harbor the illusion that it will be anything less. The council chambers are lit all around with perfumed torches, the hearth to one side blazing merrily, and Gwen alternates between sitting at the table and stoking the flame. She hated being the one to crouch there, eyes smarting, but she equally cannot stand watching Elis, or Margot, or another page or scullery apprentice of too-few summers doing it, knowing that their fate is decided by the men at the table and not their own actions, though they all live in the same castle. 

Morgana had decreed that both sides should take the winter, to grieve and mourn and heal, but they need to plan nonetheless. They draw up contingencies for all her possible requests, ranging from simple silver paid to her over the years to Camelot and Ismere as the two heads of two separate kingdoms, with all the intricacies of trade and communication implied therein. The lords nearly come to blows over what it would mean to have the Isles and the Valley open again, rebuilt by Camelot’s coin; or to have reparations paid to magic users for what the crown made them bear in the Purges.

So momentous is the news of Camelot’s surrender that envoys from across the realms brave the winter winds to come to them. Some arrive with eyes like vultures’, surveying their assembled court with hunger. The kings of Essetir and Mercia and Cornwall offer Arthur aid against Morgana in return for a majority of Camelot’s livelihood. Their ambassadors are sent back at Arthur's mild and unforgiving smile. Other kingdoms come with intentions—if not entirely altruistic—then not quite as profiteering. Mithian of Nemeth graces their court as her kingdom's regent. She and Arthur negotiate a resolution to the decades-old conflict between their kingdoms over the region of Gedref, a small province where the Purges did not burn so deeply because of Nemeth's influence. 

Mithian stays in the northern suite of guest rooms, which had to be dusted out the night before she arrived, and the windows are so old and brittle that the storm which rages the following day shatters all their panes. Rain sweeps in through the broken glass, deluging the floor and all the regent’s luggage. She shows up in council the next morning in a combination of her shift and her hunting gear, a dry smile on her face. That afternoon, when the first snow of the season is falling, Gwen leads her down to the seamstresses’ guild, and she places her commission for a hunting cloak and a kirtle, both in dark red wool.

“They will be ready in a sennight, highness,” Letitia tells her, and Mithian bows her head and thanks them.

“You—do have other garments for the time being, highness?” Gwen asks her discreetly on their walk back to the castle.

Mithian laughs. “Aye, my lady. The dresses have already dried. But guilds don’t see much business in the winter in the first place, and given the fall you just had—I doubt the women of the town have been commissioning grand gowns.”

Gwen nods at that. They've been pulling through the colder months by the skin of their teeth, from what Gwen has heard—Letitia, the oldest among them, who has lived long enough to see the end of the Purges which tried to crush her; Mary and Isabella, who teased Gwen for carrying the tokens of noble men and women, whose eyes flare whenever they sew; Julia, who always gave them all fresh flowers, even in the dead of winter. Their handiwork has always been artful, and Gwen has no doubt it will flourish when new year comes, released from the shadows that had once made them lock their doors. She thinks about coming back to finish her own dress in their rooms, when she has the time. She hopes they will welcome her.

An embassy of Druids also arrives in Camelot, riding up to the castle with their banner of the Goddess' sigil snapping proudly in the wind. It is the first time their heraldry has flown in the citadel since the Purges. There is a boy in their midst who breaks the ritual of the first meeting to wave at Gwen, and Gwen waves back as she finally places his face—the child they had snuck out of Camelot back when Merlin first arrived, what seems an age ago. It is startling to see him so tall now, but he still has the same toothy grin.

Arthur offers the Druids much in the name of atonement—gold and silver, land and titles, a place in the citadel to call their own. They refuse all of it and in return ask for only one thing. The king pales when he hears it.

Gwen finds Merlin sitting alone in his room that evening. He is flipping through one of his codices and idly sketching a sigil on the floor. His festival day jacket is crumpled on next to him. "It's a bold choice to be late to a feast in your own honor," Gwen announces, propping her hip against the door.

"You are the last person in all the kingdoms to be telling me off for breaching propriety."

Gwen doesn't deign to respond to that. She goes to sit next to him, careful not to smudge his drawing with her full skirts, and waits. It doesn't take long for Merlin to set his book aside and slump, covering his face with his hands.

"I agreed." His laugh is unhappy. "Brigit and all the gods, they didn't even have to try that hard to convince me, I agreed to it—"

“You did.” He looks up at her, and she smiles, wanting for him to sense the truth in her words. “I'm damn proud of you.”

When midsummer comes, Merlin will go to the Druids and spend two years among them as they rebuild, discovering the full extent of his abilities. He will return to Camelot fully grown into his role as the ambassador between the kingdoms and the magical world, a sorcerer and a healer and the Goddess' chosen. This was the Druids' singular condition for a treaty. _You are the hand of magic, Emrys,_ the leader of the embassy had told Merlin. _Many worlds listen when you speak, and you must learn to hearken to them all. No single one can contain you._

And no single one should. Gwen nudges her shoulder against his. "I'll visit," she tells him. "So much that they'll get tired of me. I'll bring the knights along, too, whenever you want. And Brigit knows Arthur'll take every chance for diplomatic overtures he can get now."

"That he will. If he ever forgives me for leaving." Merlin falls quiet for a long moment before he says, near desperately, "It's—so far away, Gwen."

Gwen wants to tell him that it isn't. It is not far. It is just enough space for him to learn the shape of himself, and to discover the wondrous vastness of all the realms. For him to build something in his own name, grander than a castle. "He'll understand," she says out loud. "It's not for another half-year, anyways, and you'll come back afterwards." She pauses. "The magic for this sort of thing might not be perfect, but I can tell you, it really does go a long way."

That startles a genuine bark of laughter from Merlin, which loosens something in Gwen's chest. They debate the virtues of magic in uniting distant lovers as he brushes the chalk dust off of his jacket and pulls it on. When they arrive at the feast, they find the king waiting with furrowed brow and clenched jaw, but he is waiting for them nonetheless.

The mood in the castle shifts after the Druids take their leave. The coldest months of the year are yet to come, but the council grows tenser by the hour, fearing the inevitable spring. Arthur drafts treaty after treaty, and Gwen reads them over and debates them with him, as a woman of Camelot and a woman of magic both. Merlin pores over Gaius' dusty old codices on magical law, trying to find precedents for what they are trying to do. Their work spills from the council room into Arthur's chambers, where they heatedly argue over the Valley’s jurisdiction and the constraints of the assembly of lords as the candles burn ever lower. After a sennight of this, just as Merlin draws up plans for expelling Lord Firmin from his estate and restoring the land to the Druids, Arthur finally snaps, and says Merlin can stay with them outright, if that is where his heart lies. After a too-long quiet, Merlin gathers up his books and storms from the room, leaving in his wake inkwells and reed pens strewn all over the table, and Arthur, sitting by the fire, parchment in hand. The king turns to Gwen and says, with studied lightness, that she can leave too, if she wants. 

Gwen goes after Merlin, but not before she promises Arthur that she’ll be back in the morning. It takes that rupture, and the long fortnights following it, for them to settle—not softly, not gently, but as a new dam, with foundations driven deep into the rushing river. After a month, Merlin's tunics and jackets wind up in Arthur’s rooms again, and his codices along with them. Arthur regards the books with nervousness and curiosity combined, and sometimes dares to ask the meaning of a rune or sigil. Merlin is all too glad to explain them to him: the swooping marks which are for protection and shielding, the graceful loops for safe return, a hundred little ways to swear that he will come back to what he holds most precious. 

A sennight before midwinter, a delegation from Caerleon rides into the citadel, their hardy horses galloping steadily through the snow. Queen Annis herself heads them. Her mount is a proud old mare who whinnies and stomps when someone other than the queen tries to take her reins. The queen herself is wearing armor, as she ever is, but over it is tied a cloak in the seafoam blue of her kingdom's heraldry. She clasps Arthur’s hand this time, briefly. When midwinter comes, a feast is thrown to mark the beginning of the alliance between their two kingdoms. It is the darkest night of the year, when the divisions between the wings are proven to be nothing more than custom, and Arthur opens the hall to all. The castle's servants cluster around the hearths as the nobles sit at their tables, and they all eat the same food. At the high table, Annis is cordial, but only just, and Arthur seems caught between wariness and guilt for the duration of the festivities. 

Musicians come into the hall and start to play, tuning their gut strings between every song in a vain attempt to combat the effect of the cold air on their instruments. Their strummed melodies are off-kilter, but perhaps charmingly so, and they grow more charming as the wine flows ever more freely. Revelers begin to dance, pulling themselves from the walls and the long tables to stamp and whirl like leaves in the wind, joyously. The singer calls for requests, and a familiar voice answers her. Gwen feels a grin tugging at her lips as she watches Judith pull Imogen from her seat next to the fire, spinning her around on the rush-scattered floor. Imogen had asked them to play her favorite song, after all—the ballad of the woman who held her lover tight, through every one of love’s many forms. They pull Kara from her vantage point by the far wall as well, and the girl even dances a little, though her frown never loses its surly cast.

Gwen’s plate is empty. She slips down to the kitchens herself and arranges a platter of sweetmeats to bring back to the hall. The seat next to Annis at the high table is empty, and she approaches the queen to ask, “Would you like more dessert, your majesty?”

Annis turns to stare first at her face, then her woolen dress with its metallic embroidery, then at the platter in her hands. Her cocked eyebrow climbs higher and higher, until it is in danger of reaching her hairline, and Gwen tilts her head back and laughs. 

“I’d ask how you are doing, but it seems as though you are doing quite well for yourself. My lady,” the queen adds with a smirk. 

Gwen’s usual rebuttal is on the tip of her tongue, but she thinks back to the last council meeting, where she sat at the table debating tithes with the lords for two full candlemarks, and watched as their faces grew more sour. If she had seen someone else in such a position declare that they were no high lord or lady, Gwen would have called them a liar and a fool to boot—how luxurious it must be, to possess a voice and demur it so, when so many are lacking. 

“Point to you, majesty,” she concedes, and Annis chuckles. 

Gwen settles down in the seat at the queen’s side and sets honey-sweetened fruit on both their plates. Annis pops one of the sweetmeats into her mouth and chews, nodding in approval. Gwen takes a measured bite from a sticky date. She asks the queen, "Are you enjoying your stay in the castle?"

"Perhaps." Annis tilts her head, surveying the hall in the flickering light. "More so than I did the last time, certainly."

Dancers giggle as they skirt around the high table, uncaring of propriety. Gwen watches the couples and waves at the people she knows. Some turn back and toast her before hurrying on to the beat of the music. “Are you also doing well, majesty?” she asks into the air.

Annis doesn't answer, and for a moment Gwen thinks that she hadn’t been loud enough to be heard above the clamor of the feast. The band plays on, filling the winter with other songs of transformation plucked out on their labored strings. The queen is looking into the distance now, almost idly, and Gwen wonders how much a wound like Annis' can heal in the time of two seasons. How much any of them can mend.

"For tonight," the queen murmurs, "I think I can afford contentment."

Gwen finds that she is right. 

Annis finishes her plate and sets it aside with a clatter before she rises from the table. Her blue and silver mantle falls about her, unbound hair shining pale in the fire’s gleam. She lifts her hand to Arthur and then stills. After a moment of blankness, she swings over to Merlin instead, and her smirk is reborn twofold. "My Lord Emrys," she asks, "will you favor me with a dance?"

Merlin freezes mid-word—the right hand of magic, the render of worlds, terrified by the prospect of dancing. Though he is accustomed to his title elsewhere in court, he still casts an aborted glance over his shoulder, as if searching for someone else who could answer to _Lord Emrys._ No one comes to rescue him. "Your majesty?" he manages. "You want me—to—"

"To dance," Annis finishes with all the patience in the world. “With me.”

Merlin gulps audibly and then hisses as Arthur kicks him under the table. Gwen takes pity on the pair of them. "I would gladly dance with you, my queen," she offers. 

"Ah, but Guinevere, you don't have his discomfort." Annis smiles sunnily. "My lord? Have you an answer?"

They all have received enough training in etiquette to know the meaning of the offer—the honor at being chosen, and the great slight inflicted if refused. Merlin rises with a mechanical stiffness and sets his hand in hers. He meets Arthur's eyes in faint terror, and then Annis pulls him away. They are off, and spinning through the firelit air, weaving between the other pairs. Neither of them are particularly good dancers, but that matters little.

Gwen eats in silence. Arthur tracks Merlin and Annis in their meandering path around the room. "At least it's better than open war," he decides at last.

She snorts. "Less bloody, certainly."

The musicians change from one tune to another, and the dancers whoop, clapping along to the faster beat. The noise nearly drowns out Arthur's next words. "Wonder if the Druids'll make him any better of a dancer."

His levity is forced, just shy of hollow. Gwen scoots closer to him so she doesn't have to shout over the music and says, "Not even the Mother herself can make that come to pass.”

Gwen feels, rather than hears, Arthur laugh. He leans against her, and she pushes the last of the sweetmeats in his direction. He takes them gladly, nibbling from the dates in small, careful bites. Nearly all the seats on the benches are empty by the time he finishes eating. The feast has long since passed into revelry. 

"Do me the favor of a dance, my king?" Gwen asks.

The tension around his eyes softens. "Of course, my lady."

She dances with Arthur and her brother and Judith; and after a break, with Imogen and Merlin and Kara. She too is not a particularly good dancer, but it is gleeful nevertheless, to stomp and clap and twirl, and sing along to the songs they all know by heart, joining with her people in a joyous shout that makes the rafters rattle. The fires burn low, and the torches gutter, but no one bothers to rekindle them. The darkness matters not to their dances; they can still see in the low light, enough to move and sing, and tomorrow, the days will lengthen again. The midnight bell rings, and a cheer goes up among the people—servants, workers from the lower town, the highest of the nobles, all of them together applauding the turning of the year.

It is dawn when the hall begins to empty out. Gwen says her goodbyes as people file back to their homes. Merlin and Arthur come up to her, goblets in hand. They hand one to her, with a bare finger's breadth of fragrant wine at the bottom of the bowl. Together they walk into the brisk air of the courtyard and watch the sun rise.

“To a new year,” Merlin says, toasting them.

“To a new spring,” Gwen replies, clinking her goblet against his.

Arthur is looking at Merlin, and his face is open to the light, fond and heavy and hopeful beyond it all. "To new beginnings," he says.

Merlin grins at him, the curl of his mouth small and gladdened. He brushes his fingertips over Arthur's temple and cheek, tracing out sigils on his skin before kissing him. “Don’t strain yourself philosophizing,” he whispers when they part.

Arthur rolls his eyes, but nothing can hide what is shining there. The two of them bid Gwen goodnight before heading to their bed. Gwen takes their goblets back down to the kitchen, where Hilda is already starting the work of the new day. By the time she makes her way to her room, Gwen barely has the capacity to take off her overkirtle. She is already asleep when her head hits her pillow.

Despite their toasts, winter lasts beyond the turning, as it does every year. No matter how chilled the days become, Gwen makes the time to go to the market with Kara once a sennight. They duck into each one of the fabric-hung stalls, as much to find harbor from the wind as to peruse the wares. Gwen tries to pay for the parchment and reed pens Kara covetously admires, but Kara refuses every one of her offers. She has a little income now, which Gaius grudgingly pays her, and she glows with pride when she saves up enough to buy her own ink and vellum. Imogen and Judith invite both of them into their home for dinner, and Gwen finally meets Imogen’s parents. She gives Imogen’s mother an ell of fabric woven from the fine wool Gwen and her daughter spun. The woman doesn’t call Gwen _lady_ even once in her house, and she has Imogen’s glinting smile.

The knights’ training is cancelled for a span of a fortnight when the snow piles thickly on the south field, and Gwen has to bundle up in her jacket, cloak, and a pair of her thickest socks to even cross the courtyard. A skin of ice forms on the well every night, and the children of the citadel scuffle over who gets to be the one to break it in the mornings. Life in the citadel slows; shops only open after noon, and the council takes days of rest more often. Gwen finds herself at the tavern once a sennight, shaking with laughter as Merlin and Gwaine goad each other into cheating outlandishly at dice. She eats late breakfasts with her brother whenever they both have the time, and they sometimes go to the smithy afterwards. Simon greets them kindly and lets them in. They stand at his anvil and ask him how the shop goes, and as they talk, they remember. 

After one such day, Gwen tugs Elyan by the hand down to the grove. The bones are covered now by new soil someone had brought in from the meadows. There are so many spells woven into the tokens hanging from the tree that all the snow dissipates before it touches the ground, and the air is warm and filled with illumination. The flames which leap in the brazier are the same color as the metal, and need neither oil nor pitch to feed them. Gwen and Elyan watch as the candler and her young daughter come into the clearing. The little girl is carrying a plate of fig cakes between her hands, which the candler directs her to set with the other offerings next to the brazier. She does so, carefully, with studied solemnity, and then turns back to her mother and pouts. At the woman’s nod the girl gleefully takes two of the cakes from the plate. Gwen and Elyan wave at the candler as she leaves from the grove, tucking her daughter against her side and steering her back to the citadel. She waves back. The girl’s clear voice echoes through the forest long after she leaves the grove.

The walk back to the castle is enough to chill Gwen to the bone, and she and her brother stop by the kitchens afterwards, unwrapping their scarves and cloaks by one of the main hearths. One of the younger scullery boys squeaks at the sight of them and bows before Hilda calls him back to cleaning the knives. An older kitchen hand shouts for them either to get out of her way or help her as she puts a roast on. Gwen sets her gloves to the side and takes the front end of the spit, easing it onto the stand. The woman tosses a thanks over her shoulder before hustling back to her station.

Gwen goes to the common table and surveys the fruit on it. Most of it is dried, but Hilda stores apples in barrels set in the underground cellars, in the coolest corners she can find, so the people of Camelot have fresh apples for some of the winter. The apples left in the kitchens are the small and bruised ones not fine enough to display on the high table. Gwen picks one up and blows on it, and the mottled spots fade away, revealing a fruit as bright as a jewel. 

“Convenient,” Elyan says, eyebrows raised.

Gwen tosses him the apple and picks up another one for herself, blowing on it as well. "It's not too scant a harvest." Less than it would have been without the fighting, and with more tribute, but still enough to last them through the dead and growing months. She bites into the apple, relishing its sweetness. "Now imagine how it’ll be if we can do this to all our fields."

His smile is wry. “It seems a bit like we’re cheating the gods of their bounty.”

“They were the ones who set us on this earth and bade us till it. So who are they to blame us?”

Elyan chuckles. “Spoken like a true high lady.”

Gwen sets her apple core into the waste bucket when she is done with it. She wonders if a noble would ever think to fix a spotty apple on the servants' table, or ever even know of one. It is because of high lords and ladies that she has eaten bruised fruit for all her life. 

"Magic is a wondrous thing," she says out loud. She raps her knuckles on the table, and all the fruit there goes red and sweet. "Morgana’s been telling me about rebuilding in the towns."

Even though a truce has been called, Camelot’s messengers still come in from the borders once a fortnight and announce to the king what they see: walls spiralling up, bridge-landings rejoined over rushing streams, dams rising by magic. It is another thing, to see Morgana mussed and tired after a day of raising walls, and to listen as she tells of the people who are learning to put together the wood of their houses with flicks of their hands, and summoning new thatch to put on their roofs. Morgana has learned alongside them—of plaster mildew and orchards gone to rot, of all the things the castle never let her see—and learned how to heal these things as well. 

"Even the Valley, Elyan," Gwen says, her throat aching with pride. "That land's been left for dead for almost as long as we’ve been alive, and now they're raising graves for the fallen and making things grow. They’re making their own miracles."

He glances at her. "I'm glad to hear it," he says, and she ducks her head, feeling her cheeks redden.

A teasing glint enters his gaze, and he nudges her shoulder with his. "So.”

"So," Gwen replies.

"You and the Pendragons." Elyan smirks. "You really do have a special touch with them."

Gwen lightly slaps him on the shoulder, and he laughs.

The storms stop. The layers of snow melt, running grimy into the streets, and the cobbler and his son go out into the lower town and dry the soil with the hot air from their hands, so that the wagons won’t slip in the mud as they pass by. Gwen takes her supper with Merlin and Arthur even when they are not debating Camelot’s future. They sit and talk for long hours into the night, drinking straight from the pitcher and passing it back and forth like they are young again. She flicks bits of dried fruit at Merlin and grins when he yelps and tries to bat them away, and she tells him stories of when Arthur was young and awkward and so, so proud. They join forces to tease him mercilessly. All their laughter rings long and loud in the evenings, for the light hours have little room for it. 

The days are lengthening again, but Gwen has little time to enjoy them. The council opens again in preparation for the upcoming treaty negotiations, and the meetings drag past the evening bell more often than not. Following one such meeting, Gwen finds herself back in Morgana’s chambers long after the sky outside the windows is completely dark. There are too many things clamoring in her head for her to sleep, so she spends another bell mending the final pieces of broken furniture in the main room. One of the wardrobe doors hangs askew when she’s finished with it, but she still happily surveys the chairs—two with mismatched legs, one leaning to the right—and the patchwork tables, and the trinkets put back into their boxes, and the looms remade down to their heddle-loops. She gathers up the white coverlets from the corners and folds them up, tucking them into the furthest corner of the wardrobe she can reach. She’ll dust more, if she has to. 

Her vase of flowers goes back onto the main table. It has been filled every sennight with colorful blooms, all through the winter. Morgana is already waiting for her when she falls asleep. Her hair is pulled back in a half-fallen bun, and her clothes are grubby and caked with mud.

“The snowmelt turns the ground into a swamp,” she says by way of explanation, dusting her hands off the best she can. “Winter’s fading.”

“Aye.” The thought makes Gwen grin. "I will kiss you soon."

Morgana brushes her fingers over Gwen’s cheek. “Aye.” 

Gwen listens avidly as Morgana continues. “We were digging out the buildings in the Isles today.” There is a smudge of dirt on her nose. “The school is all still there. The libraries, and the living halls—with cleaning and thatching, we can reopen them by Midsummer. The High Priestesses will live again.”

There is no way to describe her other than happiness, and Gwen feels an irrepressible smile pulling at her lips. “Will you lead them?”

Morgana shakes her head. “Morgause will. It was her home long before it claimed me, and—I think they will heal each other.” 

Gwen thinks of the towers she has seen in her dreams, the spires scrolling with bronze and silver, and for all her bitterness, she finds herself believing that Morgana speaks the truth. 

Morgana looks at Gwen, and she too is smiling. “My path lies elsewhere.”

Spring is coming. They cannot stop the march of days.

Morgana comes to Camelot when all the flowers are opening. She wears a raiment blazoned with her silver crow, and her head is held tall and proud. With her walk townsfolk from the villages she had once taken in her onslaught, bearing the standards of their homes—Ismere, Wenwood, Astolat, Kesteven, many more. Their boots are worn, their tunics patched and dun; they have the callused hands of blacksmiths and apothecaries, farmers and herders. They cross the gates into the citadel with something like fear on their faces, and the people of the lower town are lined along the high road to witness their entry. Above them all, Camelot’s banners are raised, fluttering in the green-scented wind. The people of the envoy fill the whole of the courtyard with their number.

All the servants are standing at the balconies and the windows, witnessing Morgana’s entrance wherever they can. The whole castle household is watching with bated breath. Gwen and Merlin stand flanked by Arthur’s chief knights, five paces behind the king. She cannot see Arthur’s expression when he steps forward to greet Morgana, but she can see Morgana’s when she clasps his hand. Her mouth is relaxed and her forehead unfurrowed, but her eyes are burning with so many things and so much brightness that Gwen feels her breath catch.

The envoy is invited into the castle. They arrange the council for the treaty straightaway, with no pause for niceties. All of the audience chairs in the chamber are filled, and people stand against the walls surrounding the main table and peer in through the door. The lord councilors are even more harried than they have for all of the winter, peering with disdain and fear mingled at the people and standards crammed into the room.

The council commences. Morgana is the first to speak. “I shan’t waste any of my time or yours in mincing words, my lords. My terms are simple. I ask for complete sovereignty over Camelot.”

Gasps sound in the room. Arthur only nods, and the noise falls at his raised hand. “You know I will object, my lady,” he says steadily. “But you have the room still, to finish your demands.”

“You have lifted the ban on magic and honored our fallen, and allowed us to live in your lands again. That is a start. But our lives deserve more than mere tolerance, and in order for us to live, and live truly, we require a means to power. To protect ourselves. To write our own laws. To ensure that we will never have to endure the horror of the Purges, ever again.” She braces her hands on the table, regarding each of the lords in turn and stopping when she comes Arthur. “No rule, no matter how benevolent, will ever erase the horror that has been inflicted by your kingdom on us, and our helplessness. No lesser recompense will do.” Her voice is unyielding. “Thus I ask for Camelot’s kingship.”

The room rings when she finishes. Everyone in the room turns to Arthur, and he begins, unwavering. “I recognize the pain your people have endured, my lady. And I mourn it.” He looks out at the assembled crowd. How many of them had been to the citadel before this day? How many of them had so much as seen the man who was ruling them? “But Camelot is still my kingdom. I care deeply for its people and its land, and our war started with the terror you inflicted. The hurt you inflicted on my people is also great. I cannot surrender them to you.” He leans forward. “You killed the innocent, my lady. For nothing more than the crime of their allegiance.”

“And you also killed the innocent. For less than that.”

Arthur swallows, and Morgana presses her advantage. “Our deeds are on par, as is our claim. If you wish to devolve into arguments over legitimacy and inheritance,” she tells Arthur almost gently, “I can play that game as well. We share the same blood, my king. Camelot is also mine by that right. But I am asking you to surrender it in the name of righteousness.”

They have the same blood, the same father, the same crushing white walls that reared them. Arthur asks, “What if I do not surrender my throne, and we cannot come to further agreement, my lady?”

Morgana tilts her head to the side. “Then I leave. All the towns at your border will still be under my domain. The Isles will open. The order of the Mother’s Priestesses will be reinstated, and our power will grow. And all that time, yours will wane. You know peace will not last. Not in such conditions.” Her cool mask slips for a moment, revealing a raw want when she says, simply, “I have no wish for open war again.”

Arthur nods. “Nor I.”

They regard each other across the table without speaking. The torches’ flames lick over the hair on their bowed heads. 

“Are we at an impasse, then?” Morgana asks.

When Arthur speaks again, he exchanges a question for a question. “Do you remember what you told me when we were little?” he asks. He speaks to the room, but there is no doubt among them whom the question is for. “The day I was announced as heir to this kingdom.”

Gwen realizes with a start that they sit the same—shoulders squared, heads held high and proud, distant and unflinching, pushing down everything that can be seen as weakness.

“I told you that I would be a better king than Uther.” Morgana is quiet, the most uncertain she has been since she sat down at the table. 

Arthur nods. “A better king than him. And kinder, and wiser, and more just. A king who wouldn’t burn the innocent—and then you told me that you believed I would be the same. And I believed in you.” He falters for a fraction of a moment. “We’ve both—strayed so far, Morgana.”

The sound of her name makes Morgana flinch. Gwen tries to remember the last time it has been spoken aloud in these halls with such openness.

“But we now both have a chance to make things right.” Arthur is looking nowhere save his sister, and in the light from the windows and the fire and the torches, his eyes have the same gold in them. “I will not relinquish my throne, my lady, but I now propose to you a compromise.” 

He takes a deep breath and announces, “A split kingship.”

Morgana goes still. The tide of whispers rises again. The lords’ expressions have devolved from shock into fury, and Gwen looks over to Merlin and sees his passions cross his face as they arise: surprise followed by anger, followed by understanding and a somber pride. Arthur spares them all a brief glance before he cuts across the noise. “Magic will rule again. There will be further recompense paid to all your people. We will have a shared sovereignty over this kingdom, and equal power in all matters of the law. Camelot will have two kings.”

All of them—the envoys, the spectators, the lords, the servants standing with their wine pitchers—fall utterly silent as they wait for Morgana’s reply. She regards her brother for long moments before she says—

“I assent.”

—and then the whole room roars.

Two women from Kesteven join Morgana at the table when the actual negotiation begins. It takes them hours to define what a diarchy would truly mean for Camelot, from the large questions of law and revenue to the minutiae of heraldry and the crown’s income. Three full days, to finish debating the new relationship between Camelot and the leaders of the Goddess' faith and the extent to which Morgana would act as court sorcerer in Merlin's absence. Gwen goes to bed after the midnight bell after every single one of those days, too tired even to dream. One more day to settle questions of inheritance and succession. Nigh-on a sennight to decide on what to do for magic-users, but by the end of it, there is some semblance of recompense. Waivers from tribute taxes alongside sums of coin and parcels of land will be given to families who still bear faint scars and losses more unhealable from the Purges. The Druids' sacred land will be restored to them, wherever may lie. Laws will be passed enshrining their right to live freely under the Goddess’ sky.

As their final concession in the treaty, Camelot will send money and masons to the Isles and the Valley to aid with their rising. Arthur wants Morgause to be replaced as the head of the Priestesses, but Morgana declares that her sister will no longer be a danger to Camelot. _We keep our debts, majesty,_ is all she says when pressed, _and our oaths. So long as you will._

Gwen and Merlin attend the meetings every day, sitting at the lower end of the table of lords, and they are joined by many. Morgana’s envoys fill the council chamber at the first bell of the morning and do not leave in the evenings until the lords do. The castle’s servants and magic users from the lower town sit in the aisles of the audience seats, crouching on the bare ground when space on the steps grows scarce. During breaks, Gwen glances up to the grates on the small windows high on the walls, meant for ventilation. She wonders what the chambermaids are saying as they watch their future unfolding. 

It is the evening on the final day of the council. The celebratory feast has been announced for tomorrow, the official signing of the treaty in a fortnight’s time, giving the record-keepers the opportunity to transcribe all the hastily scribbled pages accumulated across the days into something to keep for posterity. The final negotiations are drawing to their end as Arthur asks the table of lords and knights if they have anything more to say. It is a ceremonial request that closes all proceedings—all the wine has long been drunk and replaced with water, he and Morgana are slumped in their seats, and the skin under both their eyes is bruised.

“Do those assembled here have any more grievances?” he asks. 

He doesn’t even raise his head from his hands when he says it, and when Gwen calls, “Aye,” he jolts upright, blinking rapidly.

He is not the only one. Merlin swings around to stare at her in confusion. Morgana looks startled, and Lord Firmin too, and Lord Dimmond, and all the spectators standing along the walls. Gwen pays them no heed.

“I still have grievances, sire,” she announces. 

She rises from the table, feeling the weight of all their combined regard on her shoulders. The room is still, with the fraught quiet before a thunderstorm or a breaking tide. Gwen takes a breath, bringing the air deep into her lungs and her belly, and then she begins. “I have lived for decades with you and witnessed your rule over the last year, and I can say with surety that I believe you to be a good king, and pure-intentioned. And you, my Lady Morgana—I know for certain that your cause is just, and that you advocate for righteousness. But you are both still kings.”

Gwen casts her eyes around to the people standing at the edges of the room—the field-workers and smiths, the serving girls and scullery maids she knows are listening at the windows, from Ismere, from Wenwood, from Camelot. When she turns back to regard the assembled council, she holds her head up high and proud. “A king was the one who started this all. The Purges began with the rage of one man. His anger killed thousands of your people—thousands of us. And no one chose to oppose him. That should never happen again.”

Morgana moves to assent. Gwen holds up her hand, and her lady settles back into her seat, a small and wondering smile pulling at the corners of her lips. 

“We are your subjects, my kings,” Gwen says. She can hear the people start to talk. “We live and die at your command. There are people here from nigh-on every city and town in your kingdom, who came here only to know the fate you will allot them. We stand as witnesses and witnesses alone, with no command over our own lives. And be that called obeisance, or loyalty, or obedience—that is no way to live.”

Gwen raises her voice over the rising clamor. "And I ask you now to witness me in this. I call for an abolition of the current assembly and a formation of a new council.”

The lords have lost all semblance of propriety now, and she does not flinch from what she sees in their faces. Their fury is nothing compared to what she can feel running beneath her skin. "Two seats," she declares, "for every city and town in this kingdom, no matter how distant and poor. The people in the towns will cast their votes for those who will come to the citadel to speak for them in matters of the law."

Gwen fights to keep her voice steady and proud. She can see Arthur staring at her, caught between disbelief and recognition. She hopes he can still know her. 

“This will be our council, my lords. And it will be open to all. Anyone will be able to vote for its members. Anyone chosen will be able to speak with parity, whether they be woman or man, scullery maid or lord, magic user or not.” Gwen squares her shoulders and addresses Morgana and Arthur directly. “When it comes to the laws which have governance over our lives, the decision of the council will have the same weight as an edict from one of you, my kings.” 

Gwen can see the new assembly in her mind's eye even now, seated at a table round and grand, with nothing to mark either the high king’s seat or the low commoner’s pew. Arthur is smiling now—helplessly, with a deeper ken than before, and she remembers sitting with him beneath the bare tree in the autumn-gilded fields, and what she told him when he asked her where her heart lies. She looks to him as she says, with the force of all the oaths she has ever sworn, “I do not doubt your intentions, nor do I doubt your hearts. Your throne and your crown have my allegiance. But in this, my loyalty is to the people of Camelot. It always will be.”

Morgana had opened this session of the council with two simple truths when she first came. Gwen calls upon them now. She holds the eyes of her two kings as her words echo through the hall. “No rule, no matter how benevolent, will ever give us back what we have lost under your command. No rule will ever replace our own authority.”

She does not bow her head when she declares, “No lesser recompense will do.”

Camelot feasts better than it ever had that year. The kitchens are pushed to their limits as the castle finds itself in the throes of yet another revelry celebrating the treaty between magic-users and Camelot. Even three stories up, Gwen can hear cheering and the clatter of countless platters though all the layers of stone and mortar beneath her feet. There will be another feast in a fortnight’s time, even grander, to celebrate Morgana’s coronation. Gwen gives thanks to Brigit for the ceaseless clamor of the revelry even as she begins to loathe it.

“I hear congratulations are in order.”

The familiar voice makes her look up from where she is crouched before her pallet, gathering up the last of her belongings. She has been meaning to finish cleaning out her chamber since the winter, but she had been so swept up in the preparations for Morgana’s arrival and then the council meetings afterwards that most of her belongings are still in the small room off Morgana’s antechamber, rather than residing in the airy suite at the top of the south tower she has been allotted.

“I see the rumor mill hasn’t suffered for all the drinking,” Gwen says.

Imogen is standing behind her, still in her best tunic and breeches, a small pin tucked into the curls of her hair. Gwen sets the last of her trinkets into a crate and then rises, dusting her hands on her skirts.

“Rumor mill?” Imogen's scoffing makes Gwen grin through her tiredness. “I didn’t need to wait for the rumor mill. I knew it from the moment I met you.” 

One of the final compromises made with the lords was that the crown would appoint someone to be the head of the people’s council. They had proposed it likely under the assumption that Arthur would choose one of them. Arthur had called Gwen aside after the meeting was adjourned and said, _You're not getting out of this so easily._

He must have seen her trepidation as she pieced together his meaning, because he reached for her then, and his hold on her hands was soft and sure as he told her, _And Mother knows I wouldn't trust anyone else. I believe in you, Gwen._

Lord councilor. It is a strange honor, one she never even thought to aspire to. Gwen would think the whole thing tinged with unreality if she were not already so well acquainted with the unreal. She has been many things through her life: a blacksmith’s daughter, a chambermaid, a lover and nearly a queen, a sorceress with a petty sight, and now the head of a council she herself will build. The breadth of her wild hopes should frighten her—because she hopes for peace, for righteousness, for all those things which kings bought with the blood of their people. She hopes to restore justice without exacting a baneful price from those who have already bled for it. It is nothing short of a fool's errand, to believe that such ideals can be pursued without corrosion and consequence.

But Gwen will pursue them nonetheless. If the Valley can grow, if magic can sing again in Camelot—they too can make their own miracles.

"Every time you gave me the _I'm no lady, I don't want power_ spiel—" Imogen pulls Gwen into a hug and rocks her back and forth. "You're a gods-damned liar, Gwen. I knew you would do it."

Gwen laughs and hugs her back. No matter how strange the title feels on her tongue, and how much she fears losing herself in its lofty airs, she would be more of a liar than Imogen accused her of being, if she did not also admit to a sense of triumph.

Her proclamation had delayed the planned feast by five days. The council called Morgana mad when she gave serious weight to Gwen's proposals, and Arthur mad for even allowing her to speak, and it had taken all of them a combination of diplomacy and diplomatic threats to keep the lord councilors from starting another war in that very room. In the end, the lords relented when it was promised that they could keep their titles and the yearly revenue their positions on the council gave them. Arthur told his knights to keep careful watch on the men through the first months after the coronation, should they attempt something rash. It is an ill thing to wish for violence, but Gwen half-hopes they will. 

Camelot has borne them for long enough.

Aside from the former councilors, the feast that night was by and large a happy one for the courtiers, but not so happy for the high table. Arthur and Morgana sat next to each other with all the stiffness and joy of the wooden training figures they used to knock down when they were children. They didn't turn to speak to one another until the sweetmeat course was set down in front of them. _I have a proposition, my lord,_ Morgana murmured from the corner of her mouth as she sipped at her watered wine. Her knuckles were white around the stem of her goblet, belying the lightness of her words. _We take an early leave of this feast and go scream at each other until our faces turn blue._

Arthur’s smile was as breakable as a mirror when he replied, _What makes you think I would want to do something so undignified, my lady?_

 _It sounds rather pleasant. I, for one, haven't shouted at you for a_ _very long time._ Morgana paused, her polite veneer faltering for a fraction of a moment _. And because I have so much I need to tell you. About your mother, and our father, and my mother, and_ —

She broke off, her jaw clenched. Gwen wondered if Morgana had brought it with her as proof, or as a memorial—the priestess' diary teeming with grief, each page filled with stories of the clinging past that had turned them all to hate. Everyone who could have told the truth is gone, ash in the wind. They only have each other for the reckoning.

Arthur didn't respond for a long while, eating the remnants of his venison instead, with too-careful cuts of his knife. _Why should I believe a single word you say?_ _Sister_ , he added with a smile. If Gwen hadn't been close enough to hear him, she would have thought him happy.

 _You should save questions like that for the shouting match_ , Morgana said with a brittle smirk. _Brother_.

Arthur finished his venison. Morgana continued to take tiny sips of her drink all the while, watching the dancing couples with an aimlessness that verges on frantic. They rose in unison to make an early departure for Arthur's chambers, exiting the feast with a leisurely gait—raised to walk the same from when they were both young and wilful, matched now in their careful, furious control. Gwen and Merlin waited until the pair of them left before exchanging grimaces of pain. 

_They won't kill each other, right?_ Merlin asked. 

He poked at his plate with a fatalistic air but seemed content to leave the siblings to their fate. Gwen said, with surprising earnestness, _If they kill each other after all we've gone through, I will resurrect them and kill them both myself._

Gwen herself left the feast not long afterwards, seeking stillness. Her mind in the present feels like an old tapestry, held together at its rips by frayed silken thread, her patience even more so. The threads are giving. She needs a good night's sleep. Somewhere with less noise, and fewer people—though she still welcomes the presence of a few.

“I will do right by you,” Gwen suddenly swears to Imogen, remembering the halls of the council, filled with people who could not speak. “I’ll do right by you all, no matter how high the title they set on my head, I promise you that—”

“I know,” Imogen says at once. “You might be a liar, but you’re still the only high lady I'll ever trust.” 

She pulls away from their embrace. “But—I have something else I wanted to tell you.” Imogen smiles, and it is both pained and happy. “Do you remember what I told you in the summer?”

That the castle walls were closing in on her, until it felt like she couldn't breathe, and that she would give her sewing hand to leave Camelot, but she didn't want to give victory to a world that hated her. But now the world has shifted. They've won. 

“You’re leaving,” Gwen realizes. 

“Aye.” Imogen bobs her head. “We just decided. My whole family is—me, Judith, my mother, my father. Kara’s coming with us, too. They're restarting initiation for the Priestesses in the Isles, and—and I’ve wanted to leave here for so long, Gwen.”

Imogen shakes her head, and in her eyes Gwen can see all the anger and desperation which has dogged her every step in the city. There are stories of the High Priestesses, and how their magic once bade the sun to rise and fall. Gwen wonders how tall Imogen will stand in a year’s time, or two, or three, without Camelot to bend her low—how stridently she will speak after she learns the rhythms of the earth, and calls mountains to move, and mends the seasons and the forests the same way she mends the rips in old tapestries. How brilliantly Kara will shine, scattering the seasons from her fingers at her will, after she learns what it is to walk without the weight of fear on her shoulders.

"I'm glad." Gwen is the one to pull Imogen in for the hug this time. “Brigit's hells, I'm happy for you, Imogen. And I hope—you will all be happy there.”

“We're leaving after the coronation. Part of the Lady’s envoy is going back to the Valley, and we’ll be going with them.” Imogen tells her as she draws away. “I wanted to tell you early because—I’m not going to miss it here, Gwen. Not one bit. But I will miss you.” Her mouth twists. “Hells. I’m going to miss you terribly.”

A warm fondness wells in Gwen’s throat at Imogen’s moue of distaste when confronted with her own sentimentality. “I'll miss you too. Try to remember this when you’re a lofty priestess, won’t you?” Gwen asks teasingly. 

"Only if you do the same for me. My lady." 

Imogen looks like she is about to cry. Gwen claps her on the shoulder. “I'll see you again. I promise.”

She fixes Gwen with a watery glare. “You’d better,” she snaps. 

Imogen putters around, helping Gwen tidy up the trinkets scattered around the low shelves before Gwen hugs her one last time and tells her to go down and enjoy the remainder of the feast. Imogen ducks her head and mutters a short goodbye before hurrying back down the stairs, leaving Gwen alone once more. The crate in her hands is filled now with all the remnants of her life in this room: chipped ceramic jars filled with homemade face cream and the herbs and spare linen for her monthly cramps, kerchiefs she had cut from an old shift, a box of bent hairpins. Her embroidery frames, and the whetstone and leather she uses to sharpen her knife. Her kirtles and shifts have already migrated into her new chambers, and this is all that is left of her here. She makes one last pass around the room, checking for anything she might have missed. There is nothing.

She goes back into the main room one last time, walking along the windows she had once known so well. Morgana lives in this suite again, but not in the way she once did. The looms have been cleared to the cellars to make way for her arrival. There is no household yet—no weavers filling the air with the clatter of their shuttles, no women singing as they sew. A fire is burning in the hearth, kindled by hands that were not Gwen's, and a cloak is draped over one of the rickety chairs in the corner. The black sword rests on the table, belt wrapped loosely around the scabbard. The vase of flowers is still there, now bursting with reds and purples Gwen has never tried to grow. She runs her fingers along the edges of the petals, inhaling their sweetness.

The door opens. Gwen turns.

She's seen Morgana in the past fortnight. Of course she has. They spent the waking hours of every day in the same chambers, forging the first steps towards a shared future—but there they were kings, or councilors, or advisors. Seeing her in her mask of kingship is not the same as seeing her in the muddy clothes she wore in their dreams, and that in turn is a world away from seeing her now, a whole cosmos' worth of difference, because Morgana looks drained and lighter both at once, and Gwen can see all of her freckles and her little scars, and her blaunchet is rubbing off from the dark circles beneath her eyes, and her hair is coming down from its bedraggled crown in small sweaty tendrils, and she is staring at Gwen with a ravenous ache. And Gwen knows it. She feels it too. In the hollow of her chest. In the marrow of her bones. In the seat of her heart, just behind her ribs, urging her ever forward.

The door swings shut behind Morgana. Gwen's feet move beneath her—one faltering step, followed by another, and she breaks into a run, and Morgana does the same, until they stumble to a halt in front of each other, hands reaching for anything they can touch—

—and then they stop. A hair's breadth away from touch. Gwen's fingers still before Morgana's face. She can feel her breathing now, the warm brush of her every exhalation. 

Gods. She can feel her breath.

Gwen swallows hard, throat clicking. She has to try twice before she can get any words out. "How did it go?"

Morgana looks stunned at the sight of her so nearby. "How did—what go?" she echoes distantly.

Gwen smiles. She cannot do anything but. "The shouting."

"The—oh. Repetitive. Prolonged." Morgana’s face is so wild and desperate and open that Gwen’s mouth goes dry. "And loud. Very loud. Gwen—you’re here," she bursts out. “You’re actually—”

“I am.”

Her eyes are green. Her lips are chapped. Gwen doesn’t think she’d be able to tear herself away even if the walls were to crumble around them.

“You did it.” Morgana is staring at her with that same hunger. Her voice is full of wonder. “My lord councilor.”

“My king,” Gwen whispers in return.

They have much to talk about. They will have all of the summer, and the fall, and the rest of the cycle of the year, and all the years to come. There will be shouting, and screaming, and weeping, and all those things Gwen was once afraid to do, but for now, Morgana is here. Morgana is reaching for her. That itself feels nothing less than the rearrangement of the realms. 

She lets her fingers fall and cups Morgana's face in her hands. 

They both gasp at the flood of it. Gwen runs her fingers all over her face, reveling in the riot of sensation. She is warm—living—so brilliantly alive—pink and brilliant. Her cheeks are soft, and her hair is soft where it has unraveled, and her shoulders solid with muscle, and each and every of her movements titanic beneath Gwen's roving hands. Gwen noses along Morgana's neck, inhaling the clinging scent of smoke from the torches at the feast. She presses her lips to the hot skin above her pulse and tastes it on her tongue, the fervent beating of Morgana's heart.

“Gwen.” She can feel it vibrating through her throat and chest when Morgana speaks. It is one word. Just her name. Her hands trace covetous patterns over Gwen's back, tracing her spine and shoulder blades. Gwen kisses the skin under her chin and jaw, over to the fine whorls of the shell of her ear. 

"Morgana," she says, her lips barely brushing the lobe, and Morgana grins.

They gaze at each other, so close that their noses brush. Gwen is overtaken by the wonder of that little touch anew, and she presses kisses to everywhere she can reach—first the tip of her nose, then the slope of her cheekbone, and the hollow of her temple. The spot between her brows. The jut of her chin. The smiling corners of her mouth, and her fluttering eyelids. Morgana laughs at her fervor, and she trails her lips down to Morgana's throat, so she can feel the source of her laughter.

Morgana guides her face back up, the touch of her fingers on Gwen's neck like the touch of dawn. "Follow me," she says, already with the beginnings of breathlessness. She touches two of her own fingers to her mouth and kisses them.

Gwen takes her hand in hers, curls her fingers around the strong bones of her wrist and kisses each of her knuckles. She turns her hand over to kiss her palm and the pads of the two fingers she had touched to her mouth, leans in and thumbs at the fullness of Morgana's lower lip before finally kissing her like she never could in their dreams. All the careful pins holding Morgana’s curls in place are dislodged by her eagerness as she threads her fingers through Morgana’s coiled braids. They clatter to the floor, and little by little, Morgana’s hair slides down in a tangled mess. One of Morgana's hands comes up against the side of her neck; the other falls to her waist to rest on her hip and pull at her until they are pressed together. Her lips part when Gwen licks at them, and Gwen teases the heat just inside her mouth and the slick angles of her teeth. She tastes of honey and wine, and the eager noises she makes in the back of her throat, and Gwen chases the sounds and wonders if she can subsist on them alone.

Morgana starts pushing her back, guiding her over to the main table, and Gwen goes gladly. She pivots on her heel at the last moment so Morgana is the one who bumps up against the chair. The chair legs rattle when she tumbles into it, and she freezes.

"Is this going to break the moment we start again?" she asks warily. Gwen kisses the divot of her upper lip before pulling away enough to look at her. Her mouth is shiny and her carmine smeared, the color high on her cheeks. Her hair is in complete disarray, and Gwen is heady from looking.

"Maybe." Gwen's breath is coming hard. It's hard to kiss when smiling. "But we can put it back together." The chair creaks under Morgana's weight, and Gwen adds, "And it's less than a yard to the floor."

Morgana breaks into giggles. Gwen joins in, too full of lightness to keep it all contained. Morgana holds out her hand, and Gwen takes it, laughing even louder as Morgana pulls her down on top of her. She follows eagerly, straddling her lap and kissing her again. They learn each other until the fire burns low, and Gwen glories in every touch. 

She holds her tight at last.

Sunlight beams through the windows into the great hall, setting the dust motes aflame. Guards stand at every door and along the balconies, but the bolts and blades they carry are dulled. There will be no death on this day. Knights and nobles are arranged in perfect rows in the open center of the hall, split to form a living aisle. The castle servants fill the back, lining up against the walls and spilling to the stairs outside, into the courtyard. Morgana will walk from the grove in the forest to the citadel and all the way through the lower town, so her people can witness her. Two women with golden eyes will flank her, in her previous colors, and two of Arthur’s knights in their old heraldry. 

At the front of the hall, banners blazoned with Camelot’s new standard hang proudly from the rafters, the dragon and the crow facing each other with their wings raised, the sword of destiny between them. The fabric was woven from the last of the wool spun in the fall, the embroidery done by the women of the lower town on a double commission to make up for the scarce time allotted. Twin thrones are set on the main dais. Arthur stands before them, in his mail and long cloak. He holds a crown in his hands, a mirror to the one on his head. Merlin stands at the foot of the dais on Arthur’s left hand. Gwen is poised at his right. The red silk of her dress sits strangely on her shoulders and waist, for all her fingers know every panel of the fabric. It is her first time wearing the gown. She allows herself to smooth her hands once over the flowers running across the full folds of her skirt, which gleam against the silk, blooming as the season. There is little else she can do to calm herself while she stands before the court. 

The bells begin to toll. Morgana has started her walk.

A clamoring starts in the distance, grows and grows until it becomes inexorable. Bursts of shouting and stomping float in the air, coming ever closer to herald her arrival. Gwen marks the time with her heartbeat. A cry rises from the courtyard steps, and the crowd in the back of the hall parts like a current to let her through. Morgana comes, her guards behind her. Her dark cape trails behind her as she proceeds up the aisle, her mail bright under her long gown and girdle. Her hair is bound tight along her head, away from the gold and green of her gaze.

She stops before the dais and looks first to Gwen, a flicker of instinct. Gwen nods minutely. That is as much reassurance as she can give without the spectators taking notice, but Morgana’s back is turned to the assembled court. She can smile, and so she does, with all her fear and all her hope, and the light is caught around her.

“Approach the throne, Morgana of Camelot,” Arthur announces. His voice is a king’s voice, resonant and proud.

Gwen and Merlin turn in unison to regard her as she ascends the steps of the dais. She kneels before the empty thrones, the dark of her cloak tumbling behind her. “Witness now her oaths,” Arthur calls to the hall. He lifts the crown into the air.

“Do you swear in all solemnity to govern the people of Camelot in accordance with the righteousness of their kingdom, to protect them and extoll them?”

Morgana’s face is turned towards the thrones, but her words ring clear to them all. “I do.”

“Will you execute all your judgments with mercy and justice, in the name of the gods we hold dear?”

“I will.” She lowers her voice, but the fire in it burns fervent and true as she abandons all ritual to declare, “And Mother damn me if I break my oaths.”

She bows her head. Arthur lowers the crown to rest on her temples. The metal shines, the day itself crowning her.

“Arise then, my king.” 

He offers her his hand, and she takes it. She rises to her feet, and they stand side by side. Morgana surveys the courtiers arrayed in front of her, beneath the spill of the sun. Arthur lifts their joined hands into the air and calls to all their people, “Look now upon her majesty, Morgana of the House of Pendragon, High Priestess of the Goddess in all her forms and King of Camelot.” 

The hall falls silent as Arthur’s proclamation rings through the rafters. He lifts his chin and shouts, “Long may she live.”

He and Morgana seat themselves on their thrones, and the chant is raised. Merlin is the one to start it, throwing sparks along the banners of the dragon and the crow so they glitter, and the people join in. _Long live the kings,_ they call, their cries overlapping, from the back of the hall and the courtyard steps, all through the winding streets. Long live, to heal their land and uphold their oaths, to make their choices, to pay atonement. _Long live the kings,_ the knights proclaim, lifting their lances into the air. Long live, to step into the future with their eyes open. 

“Long live the kings!” Gwen shouts. Above their heads, the sunlight dances.

Spring has come for them all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! All and any feedback is welcome.
> 
> It feels a bit surreal to finally publish this piece and put it out to the world at large. The entire first draft was written in a blur between February and April of 2020, a process which took place across two continents during my spare time as a source of distraction. I don't remember a lot of that process, but I can say with surety that this is the first time I've ever written anything over 30k and the first time I've followed an outline for any project. 
> 
> Once again, I can only thank everyone who encouraged me to finish and gave me feedback. The very fact that this is readable is a testament to their efforts. I am no medievalist, and no expert in Arthurian lore. I haven't watched a full episode of BBC Merlin since about 2013. This fic was born from my desire to see Gwen centered within her own narrative, and most other things have been thrown to the wind. 
> 
> The song referenced at multiple points is the ballad of Tam Lin (Child 39). I listened mainly to [the version by Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3IPaHk07Pg) while writing.
> 
> Please feel free to drop by my tumblr ([elissastillstands.tumblr.com](https://elissastillstands.tumblr.com/)) to chat about this fic, Gwen, Morgwen, or anything else that might pique your interest.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [{Art} for Crave the Brush of Spring](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25782958) by [Valika](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valika/pseuds/Valika)




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